


Writer in the Dark

by Poetic_Nothing



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Lance (Voltron) is a Muse, M/M, OR IS HE, Poetry, as in, cmon it's nearly love at first sight so, keef's muse, mean university professors, mild burn, not a forest fire but not a slow burn either, photographer lance, poet keef, the Broganes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-02-11 10:12:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12933087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetic_Nothing/pseuds/Poetic_Nothing
Summary: "I see you've marked social poems and..." her tone got a bit more surprised, "love poems as a no-go." Keith nodded."Interesting. Why not social, then?""My empathy doesn't stretch that far."She seemed to accept it. "And love?""Never felt it."The Professor laughed, seemingly appreciating his honesty, as per usual. "Good one, boy. Now pick one amongst those two. That's your final assignment for the semester."Keith only hesitated for a couple seconds. "Social.""Love poems it is."





	1. Boy Wonder

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo... I finally know the meaning of "Biting more than you can chew". Trying to write another writer, and a great poet no less, is fuckin hard. But this has been in my mind since last night, when I binge-wrote this devil. What can I say? I just really like the idea of a Keef who manages to charm everyone with his words and the way he adresses his feelings on poetry, but is virtually useless for all emotion-related aside from that.  
> Unbetaed, so any mistakes are my own.
> 
> Enjoy :)

Keith had always had a problem with feelings. He'd also always had a problem with words, extremely so. At a certain point of his life, it had gotten so bad that his adoptive family put him in a creative writing class, and somehow, that was how Keith learnt that his difficulty with both feelings and words didn't extend to paper.

He was a poet. He preferred to call himself merely a writer, for the effect he had on people when he claimed to be an adept of poetry was too much on the swooning side on the spectrum of reactions, unnervingly so.

He entered creative writing at thirteen, six years after he'd left his home country, Korea, and come to America. He had, after that, spent the following five years "in the system", as the Social Services people called when a child kept jumping from one foster house to the next, and it was, overall, a... not so pleasant experience. Finally, at twelve, he'd gotten to foster parents who were not only kind and caring, but also intent on adopting a kid who hit it off with them and their son.

Keith had, obviously, not "hit it off" with any of them, if you didn't count that one time he actually hit his foster brother, Takashi, and given him a bloody nose. However, something about him (his Mother said it had been Keith's "worrying wounded animal aura") had made them try and break through to him. He admittedly didn't possess, back then, all that much inside other than bottled rage and confusion, but they helped him in the process of building himself from scrap. He was a blank individual; a child whose personality hadn't been formed further than survival instincts risen in times of need—namely, his periods of homelessness both in Korea and after he'd run from an abusing foster household. He was a thrashing beast, a hissing cat, a wolf so vicious that it had to be either infected with rabies, or, as his adoptive mom had said, wounded.

He and his psychologist still worked on it, at nineteen years old, just as he had at twelve, and it was no less challenging. He understood the concept of forming a personality, something so common nowadays that nobody questioned it, but a habit that had mostly begun with the Romantics, not that long ago. The assortment of things one likes and dislikes, their way of interacting with others and presenting themselves in society, but specially, a way to say, _I am me and I am unique and I matter_.

Keith found particularly interesting how such an ideology didn't exist in certain societies, such as the indigenous people. A hive-like mind, collective thinking sort of behavior, and they were one and only with their land, their ancestors and the rest of their people. He found it easier a concept to grasp than most people with whom he'd discussed it with, all to accustomed to Myers-Briggs, horoscopes, personality tests and the defining of oneself akin to self-absorption.

If Keith were to do the same, in his humble collection, he knew he was a hothead. Always had been, and no amount of therapy could take that "trait" away from him. Also, he supposed he could be described as reliable, to the very few people he committed himself to. A book junkie. A cigarette junkie, too. "Emotionally constipated", according to Shiro (Takashi's nickname). A good martial artist. Passionate.

The point was, Keith thought the whole thing was a self-fondling, social masturbatory convention, but he still struggled with it. The only time during which he didn't, in fact, was when it was solely him, a pen and a notebook—which could be replaced, in times of dire need, by a piece of paper, a napkin, the notes of his cellphone, or even his forearm.

Keith started writing, back when his parents first convinced him to join the writing group, with small tales and fairytales he used as metaphors for his noisy feelings. He found, as he was given a piece of paper on the second day of class (the first day had been spent on introductions), that translating what he could barely fathom, let alone put to coherent, _denotative_ words, helped mute the noise. He felt, quite frankly, a bit detached from his feelings, once he poured them onto his paper. It was a liberating sort of detachment.

  
_Once upon a time there was a conmen,_ he'd written, thirteen years old and as clumsy with his writing (and with his English, a language he was still learning) as he was with his repressed feelings. _He had to watch over his goat while his sewer wife went out to get more thread. He liked the goat, he used to go to the vilage play with it, and they were much close. He told the goat stories at bedtime, though he never sing like the sewer mum did._

_After long times passed the conmen started to know his wife would not come back. So he stayed because the goat was his also, and he still told bedtime stories, and the goat was very happy. The other animals at the vilage thought they were more good, but the goat was still happy. It thought the other animals were silly._

_Someday, the conmen dad went away also. The other animals of the vilage felt pity, but the goat did not want pity. It wanted its mum back, and its father back also._

_The goat was taken from the home where he heard bedtime stories and lullabies. It got served for dinner. All the conmen and all the sewer women of the kingdom got together for the feast, but the goat knew from the afterlife of goats that if it didn't burn it smelled and if it didn't smell it would be ill inside and take all of them dead with it._

_The end._  
  
*******  
  
"Keith, you're going to be late!"

"I KNOW, I KNOW!"

 _Bang. Bang_. "Ow!"

"What the fuck, Keith?!"

So. Keith was a bit late for a fairly important class.

And by that, he meant that it was his first class with a notoriously demanding and unreasonable Professor, and he should be there in, like. Two minutes. And it took him twice that time to walk across campus in a sedated pace, he knew.

Keith supposed that he wouldn't be going at a sedated pace, then.

"I will not drag your bloody corpse out of the classroom, I hope you know that," Shiro stated calmly.

Keith spit his mouthful of toothpaste and turned his head to glare at his brother. Said douche was leaning against the bathroom doorway as if he didn't have a care in the world, and his condescending little smirk was even more meaningful due to recent events. He had spent, actually, nearly the entire previous night yelling at Keith to turn off the lights on his bedroom, stop writing, and _go the fuck to sleep Keith, goddamn it!_

So you could perhaps say that Keith Kogane had had it coming. Still totally worth it, though.

Sometimes, he thought as he ran away from his dorm building and towards his classroom, as the inspiration to write struck, it was a call you just had to answer. Maybe it happened at inconvenient times, like yesterday while he got settled for bed, but if he didn't do it, it would be forever an itch he could never scratch, a deep burn he could never soothe. The words would be forever prickling his head, whispering _what if it had been it? The poem to cure cancer, the story to end all wars? Your magnum opus? How will you ever know?_

Keith thanked the gods and his psychologist, since the former had granted him a blessing oh so long ago, and the latter had thought that merely therapy sessions and writing class weren't enough, in his case, to deal with his emotional problems. Consequently, he had also taken Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, boxing, and Taekwondo (not all at the same time, obviously), and those had helped his stamina. Even the gym sessions he had thrice a week to aid in his speed and strength contributed to how fast he was currently crossing the Uni campus.

His mind barely registered the picturesque scenario which surrounded him, but he was aware of its beauty. As he'd gotten settled in with Shiro, three days previous, they'd gone on a walk through the fields, the cross-country track, the football field and the communal areas. There was even an agora in which took place political debates, rap wars and poem declamations alike.

The whole campus had a weird atmosphere, like too many different individuals forced into one single place, the result being a place devoid of a concrete identity. However, the uniqueness you could feel emanating from the graffitied walls and the physics sculptures (created by a partnership between the physics and architecture departments) was undeniable.

By the time he arrived at the hallway, his wristwatch was telling him that he was two minutes late—a good time, considering he had had to pick up his backpack and finish brushing his teeth when he'd started that countdown. Keith could only hope that the Professor would also see his effort and not banish him from their class (an essential part of Keith's curriculum) or murder him, as Shiro had said they would.

Keith jogged up to the door numbered 420, wiping the sweat that had collected on his upper lip from the run and drying his also sweaty palms in his jeans, though those were wet from nervousness. _It's okay, Keith. Just push the door open._

Figuring it was just like that one time he dislocated his shoulder during practice, and that he just had to get it over with quick and swift, he pressed his open palm against the wooden door, and felt it open at the same time as it let out the loud scratching noise of old hinges. The sound made him cringe, but he continued pushing.

When he looked up, the entire class was staring at him, some students expressionless, some disbelieving, and a middle-aged teacher stared at him from her position behind the desk. Her mouth was halfway open, as if she'd been speaking when he interrupted.

She seemed to get her bearings soon enough, and her small beady eyes narrowed.

"Nice of you to join us, Mister...?"

"Keith. Keith Kogane, ma'am.

A few snickers from his classmates. "I am nobody's ma'am, boy," she said a bit disdainfully, mimicking Keith's slight Texan accent. "You do me the courtesy of addressing me by my given name, I do you the courtesy of addressing you by yours."

Keith nodded, chastised, and felt the humiliation burning red on his cheeks. "I'm sorry, m—Professor Turner."

He looked up from where he'd been staring fixedly at his snickers, trying to check if his slip had been noticed—or worse, interpreted as intentional disrespect. The Professor was staring at him severely; though, granted, that seemed to be her default expression.

Her heavy hand fell upon a tall pile of paper right next to her.

"Did you bring the list, kid?"

"Uh--"

She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose tiredly. "Every single semester, I swear to God..." She then talked to Keith. "The list I sent all the students in the previous semester. Fifty objective questions, two discursive ones." She gestured to the pile. "All seemed to be aware of it."

"I uh. I wasn't here last semester."

"A freshman?" It was a bit disbelieving.

"Yes."

He could see a glimmer of hope in the horizon. He wasn't to blame. Well, not on _that_ aspect, at least.

"I don't take freshmen in my class, Mr. Kogane."

Was she unaware?, Keith pondered. Coran was a bit of an airhead sometimes, but not usually with important things.

"I was, uh, recommended. By a faculty, that is. Dr. Cavanaugh."

She was silent for a millisecond. then, a raspy laugh, rough probably due to lack of use, erupted out of the Professor's mouth. "You're Coran's pupil? The brilliant young writer he's been tutoring for years?"

Keith lowered his head, feeling equal parts ashamed and furious. He also thought that the brilliant teacher had had no business taking so much interest in him, that he wasn't worthy, but it sure was no walk in the park having it rubbed in his face in front of dozens of other students. Also, she had no idea who he was. He _could_ , very well, be the next Walt Whitman or Virginia Woolf. Not that he _was_ , but he could. Her dismissiveness was unwarranted on a stranger.

He kept trying to open his mouth to excuse himself and take his leave, but he seemed to be glued to the spot and motionless.

"Take a seat. _Quietly_. Come by my desk after class and I'll be giving you the list of exercises plus some extra assignment." The next part of her speech was directed at the whole class, in a much louder tone. "Notwithstanding the actual homework you're all getting, you lazy sons of bitches!"

The increase in volume was really unnecessary, considering how all the students seemed to be hanging onto every word she said. They all groaned in answer to her announcement, though, the cult-like trance shattered.

"So, as I was saying, this semester we'll be covering the Medieval—"

Keith slipped away from her ruthless claws, since she seemed inclined to ignore his existence, and roamed the rows of chairs until he found an empty one near the back.

He went up the stairs until he got to the second to last row, collapsing on his chair. He tried to get his heart rate to settle, and the adrenaline in his blood to quiet down, and attempted to listen to what Professor Turner had to say.

  
  
Unfortunately—or perhaps not, considering that she would be his teacher for at least two more semesters to come—Professor Turner was both a complete dickhead and an amazing professional. She had an amazing knowledge of the subject, and she explained everything in detail. Somehow even the boring topics got curious and enticing, so Keith longed for her classes as much as he came to fear them.

After that disastrous first day, he got back to the dorms slumped over and defeated, so Shiro's rambunctious laughter offered little consolation to his state of depression. "That bad, huh?"

"Worse. So, so much worse."

The list had been given the other students, rightfully so, in the middle of the previous semester. It was _gigantic_.

When he'd come down to talk to her, as per requested, he could swear that his heart ceased beating for a second.

"I-I. Next week? How can I—?"

She had been fixing her things, collecting stray papers and pens as he spoke. She looked up at him briefly.

"—get it done by next class? Well, good luck."

He looked at the thick file she'd slaped in his hands. It even _hurt_ when it'd hit him, for Chrissake. "It's impossible."

"Not if you're the prodigy Coran's convinced that you are. You're not going to disappoint him now, are you, Keith?"

Her words had been sweet and alluring like honey, but he could hear the undertones of cruelty.

"It's not even just that!" His voice broke a bit halfway through. Embarrassing. "There's the regular homework. What about it?"

"Very very good luck, then." The Professor patted the papers in his hand as if they were a dog. "See you next week, boy wonder."

He huffed where he laid, sprawled in his couch. What was it, with everyone calling him "boy wonder"?

He remembered how it was like, when he'd first gotten at the Shirogane house. He had no name, for his past foster families could never bother to learn the supposedly complicated Korean syllables, and with the first family that actually cared enough to ask him and use it, he already felt too detached from it. He'd been Garrett, John, Tommy and Jeremy. He wasn't, really, any of those either.

"What name do you want, then?" his mum had asked kindly, kneeling to his size. He always felt frustrated for being so small. His father (the first one, who left him) was all big. Only much later on would he learn that he probably didn't grow to his natural six feet something due to malnourishment during his childhood.

"Keith," Keith had said immediately, thinking about his favourite character from Voltron: Defenders of The Universe, how strong he was, how much he wanted to be like him.

Two nights after that, she came by his room, and laughed a bit at the discarded pieces of paper that his trashcan could no longer fit. Mum then sat by his bed, and brushed his thick eyebrows with both her thumbs, trying to subdue them to propriety.

"We are called the Shiroganes, you know? Me, Takashi and your father. It means "silver" in Japanese." Keith had felt the impulse to correct her, to tell her that he had no father, but he remembered that the dullness in her eyes, caused by sadness, was much less pleasant than the proud glint he'd seen earlier in the day, as he showed her a good grade he'd gotten at school.

"But you're not a silver boy, are you? You're out boy wonder, our golden prodigy." He opened his mouth to object, but she beat him to it. "Your English is so good. You only started to learn it when you came to America. You're writing is impressive, even Mr. Coran said so. Mr. Atsuko too," Keith's Taekwondo instructor, "has complimented you."

Keith had turned his head the other way, trying to hide his blush. However, though his mum didn't force him to cut his hair like the other families, who called him "bestial" with long-ish hair, it still hadn't grown as much as he felt comfortable using. His locks weren't hiding his embarrassment nearly as well as he'd hoped they would, red spreading through his cheeks and down his neck.

"We aren't done with the process of adopting you, you know. I think we can still change your name."

He turned back real quick, eyes wide and scared.

"Don't you want me... part of the family?" _Your son, Shirogane like Takashi was._

He felt pathetic just asking it, the small piece of his mind he'd allowed to escape, but she always made it a point calling herself his mother, as long as it didn't upset him, and so did his father and his brother.

"Oh, honey, of course. But I think that you are more. You have experienced things neither me nor your brother will ever be able to conceive, and you are both ours and something entirely of your own."

Keith had frowned, not knowing what "conceive" meant, and struggling with the meaning of her speech overall.

"So... what am I?" It was a question his psychologist had been asking him for a long time.

"I already said it. You're our golden boy." She took out something from the pocket of her dress, a long string. "Up, up."

He stretched his neck to give her access, and she looped a long golden string through his neck. "I got Takashi a similar one, in silver. It's an origami lion, since you guys seem to like that alien robot show so much."

"I—" He remembered what his psychologist used to day, what he'd recommended in terms of reactions. "Thank you. I... appreciate it."

Her smile had been blinding.

"Golden is "Kogane" in Japanese, you know?" He looked at her with curiosity. "How would you feel being the Kogane to our Shirogane?"

Keith touched the necklace that rested in the middle of his chest, beneath his t-shirt, many years after those events, and thought about making him mum proud. With a long-suffering sigh, he arched his back, listened to the satisfying pop of his joints, and started to work on his devilish assignments.


	2. The Trojan Horse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of coffee, flirtation and mesmerizing people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a bit longer than I'd expected, but here it is :)
> 
> Unbetaed, so any mistakes are my own.

The coffee house was reasonably crowded, which could only be expected of a supplier of caffeine in an University town. It was called "The Lion's Den", referencing one of Altea Uni's main buildings: the Castle of Lions.

"I, for one," a small bespectacled student called Pidge was saying, "think it's terribly disrespecting."

Another one, tall and with sunglasses, despite being both indoors and a cloudy day, replied disdainfully.

"You're just bitter cuz the Castle's _so much better_. Even the owner of this thing knows it."

"C'mon, Lance, you know that the Garrison has its merits," pleaded a dark-skinned woman with platinum white hair.

"Don't _c'mon Lance_ me, okay?" the one named Lance sneered. "You—you and Shiro!—and filthy traitors, and shouldn't even be allowed inside the Castle. _You_ don't get to opinionate."

Lance meant how courses from one building often required classes from the other, but some majors, such as Allura and Shiro's (Business and Economy), required nearly the same amount of classes in both, making them be seen as "traitors", "rats", "double-teamers" or even "spies". _No one knows where their loyalty lies_ , was the commonplace justification.

Business and Economy, however, was a particularly tricky subject to all those within the Castle who partook in the animosity. Most classes of that course were taken in the Castle of Lions, but somehow the Head Office was located at the Garrison—meaning that during the annual Excellency Competition, Allura and Shiro were against Lance and the other Lions.

The short one huffed.

"Wait til Shiro gets here. He might have something to say to that."

It was the rest of the table's turn to scoff.

"Oh _right_ ," Lance mocked, and then pitched his voice lower to imitate Shiro's. " _All that matters in these competitions is teamwork and the chance to bond in a_ fun _way. Look at me, I'm Shiro and I hide the fact that_ I'm a _traitor_ behind a mask of niceness!"

The whole table snickered, and Lance peeked up a bit, always feeding off making other people smile and—admittedly—also feeding off a bit of attention. Pidge's laughter, however, turned into a wheezing sound, and Lance narrowed his eyes in confusion and suspicion.

A second later he got his answer.

"Got something to say to me?" a deep voice asked behind him, precisely the voice Lance had been trying to emulate.

Lance, unfazed, pushed his sunglasses down to the tip of his nose for dramatic effect, turning around in his chair and scrapping its legs on the floor in the process.

"Don't I always," he teased, not noticing the glaring boy right next to Shiro. His brother, Keith, had just caught the tail end of the conversation, and, without any context (since he'd just entered Altea, unaware of the Castle x Garrison competition) all he'd heard was this dude calling his brother a "traitor" and mocking him cruelly.

"Actually, we were just reaching a consensus on _how much better_ the Castle is." Lance flashed Shiro a cheeky grin, hitting his friend with the full force of his Gaze Through The Lashes. He purred, "The popular opinion is, _a lot_."

Shiro, by now used to Lance's harmless flirting, rolled his eyes and proceeded to ignore his efforts, which, rude. Shiro's brother, by his side, frowned in deep thought, struggling to understand the situation.

" _Actually_ ," Allura said pointedly, "what Lancey dearest here was trying to say is that he thinks that because this coffee shop is named after his building," she flicked her long hair over one shoulder, "it means that it is superior to the Garrison."

Lance looked at her with infatuated eyes, acting as if her speech hadn't been ironic. "I am so proud to be your relative, Lura."

Pidge was scooting over, making space for Shiro and his plus-one as they both dragged unoccupied chairs nearby to sit around the table.

"What's that have to do with us?" Shiro asked once he was sitting between Pidge and Keith.

"You, my love," informed Lance, "are one of those spies who infiltrate a place, make everyone feel safe, and then _BAM!_ " he pounded his fist on the table, shaking some of the cups dangerously, "suddenly the horse is burst, Troy is burning, Achilles is dying—"

"I don't think there was a double agent in Troy," Keith interrupted. Pidge wheezed again, and buried their face in their cappuccino to muffle the sound. _Uh_ , they thought. _This ought to be good_. "I-I mean, you said, infiltrating a place, giving a false sense of security—that's a double agent. There wasn't one in Troy."

For a moment, Lance's face was full of shock and insult, annoyed at being interrupted and corrected. However, a second later his eyes, moving rapidly behind the dark lenses of his glasses, took in the entirety of the boy in front of him, first with the critical eye of a Photography minor, and then with the appreciative eye of a man.

"So hey," Lance drawled, tone devoid of the venom Pidge'd been expecting. "You wanna double over my horse?"

There was a second of stilted silence, long enough for all of Keith's blood to run North at an alarming rate, but then the quiet broke into incredulous laughter from everyone except the joke maker and the makee.

"Lance," Pidge breathed in between laughs, "that has got... to be the worst so far."

Keith's eyes were as wide as saucers. Lance felt sorry for him for a second, but he couldn't deny that the blush wasn't entertaining. Most people reacted to flirting by flirting back (often just for kicks) or with narrowed eyes and "sorry, I have a boyfriend", or "sorry, I'm not gay".

It was a fun change, and he'd like to test its possibilities.

"Keith, is it?" Allura asked. Keith nodded. She was right beside him, looking him down with sympathetic eyes. His blush looked painful enough to elicit her pity. "Don't mind my cousin here. He flirts just because he can; a pastime, really. After he hit on the dean, we understood it's merely his way of communicating and interacting with the world around him."

"An awkward baby deer flirting to hide its wobbly legs," Pidge added, then, "Ouch!" as Lance threw a bunch of sugar sachets at their face.

Keith felt his heart settle a bit, but his voice was still croaky when he spoke. "Isn't the dean like, sixty-five?"

" _Precisely_."

Keith nodded, registering that piece of information, but deciding he was too tired to reflect upon it. He turned to Shiro.

"I’m gonna go overdose on some caffeine, kay? You want something?"

Shiro laughed, albeit in a worried manner, and shook his head in denial. "Go easy," he warned lowly. "You've already had too much coffee this past week."

After Keith had nodded and left the table, destined for the counter, Lance let out a long-suffering whine.

"Way to ruin my game, you guys."

Pidge muttered, "The funniest part of this is that you think you have _any_ game," but that went ignored by everyone, and Lance's ego appreciated it. Shiro's condescending tone, however, was also a bit harmful to the soul.

"You-- were you really trying to hit on him?" He added then, tone even more skeptical, "Like _that_?"

And Lance understood the confusion. Back when he was a teenager, fifteen or sixteen years old, he used to literally fall in love with every pretty person he met, but it had changed since then. Now Lance was a man of nearly twenty, and, like Allura had said, flirted just because it made daily conversations more exciting than the ordinary, boring routine.

And a bashful dean was way better than an angry and snotty one, which was how other students (who didn't know that flattery really got you most places) described her.

"No... I guess not?" He scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. "But he's really aesthetically pleasing."

Shiro frowned, but in the I'm-pretending-to-be-a-big-bad-wolf way of his. "That's my brother your talking about, there."

Lance laughed it off, but found himself curious that those two were brothers. Both of them had a clear Asian descent, but Lance, unlike most people, _could_ tell the Asian countries apart, thank you.

Maybe adoption of one of them. Or both. Who knew.

"I just meant that he's different," Lance said, and he meant it. Looking over his shoulder, he met eyes with deep violet ones, who, despite being surrounded by bushy brows (never seen tweezers, had he?) and deep, _gigantic_ dark circles beneath his eyes, were still bewitching and sort of otherworldly. Like their owner. "I want to photograph 'im."

Keith came back a couple minutes later, a large espresso in each hand, and a pensive frown set on his forehead. After some gentle prodding from Allura and Shiro, he loosened up enough to talk a bit about himself— _a writer, huh_ , Lance thought—and about how he was adapting to Altea.

"I mean," he said. "I guess it hasn't been so bad, but I really wouldn't know. I've only been here a bit over a week, and most of that was spent on the dorm."

Lance gasped.

"You _do_ know this school is famous for its entertainment, right? There's like, track and field, a swimming pool, some sports camps, all sorts of clubs. Sure, you have to enlist to be allowed in, but extracurriculars are the life of this shithole!"

Pidge lifted their head from their computer to complain, "Language, Lance, what the fuck, there are children here," covering Shiro's ears. Allura snickered.

"It's true, Keith. There are a multitude of things to do."

Keith brushed a bang away from his face, drinking his second cup of coffee from a straw. Lance was both horrified—that shit was probably cold by now, and the straw!—and impressed by Keith's steadfast love of caffeine.

"I actually plan to join in on some stuff, but this week wasn't the easiest for me." He rubbed a thumb underneath his eye, right on the black bags. "I haven't slept properly in forever, cuz I had to do a really big assignment for Professor Turner within a week, so there hasn't been time for—well, anything but work."

Shiro's eyes looked sad, and he squeezed the back of his brother's neck in something that Lance guesses was a comforting gesture between them. Allura hummed sympathetically, but Pidge forgot their notebook for a second to contribute to the conversation.

"Was it you this semester's victim?" they inquired bluntly.

"Huh?" Keith asked, sucking the last of his drink with disgusting obnoxious straw noises.

Lance noticed Shiro shaking his head as subtly as he could, eyes wide.

"Oh, Turner, from the _Castle of Lions_ ," it practically dripped disdain, "is notorious for picking a student every semester. They'll be like, her victim or something, cuz they're the one who suffers the most in her classes and in assignments 'n stuff. She just usually waits until, like, class two or something, before unleashing her inner beast. I guess you're just that unlucky, then."

"Yeah," Keith muttered, looking down. Shiro looked nearly as amused as he looked worried. "Unlucky me."

Allura, noticing the change in atmosphere, was quick to change the subject, focusing on a person who would receive the attention without fretting like slightly introspective Keith. Her cousin, not as oblivious as most people thought he was, had caught onto Keith's change of demeanour, and was only so happy to oblige.

"—I mean," Lance was saying, ten minutes later, gesticulating animatedly with glasses pushed up into his hair, "we're _still_ on still life right now, but I'm thinking of doing something... bolder, for my final assignment this semester. Like, I know most people are setting up their own makeshift studio to have proper lighting and control the wind and position and stuff, and objects and fruit are so easy it's _laughable_ , but I want something more."

Keith, who had been taken out of the spotlight by the boy speaking way too much way too fast, didn't seem to be aware of how he'd been helped, bad as usual with social cues, but neither did he seemed bothered by Lance's overly talkative nature. He was, in fact, staring at Lance with calculative eyes, the same sort Lance himself had on when he'd examined Keith, or when he looked at something he found aesthetically pleasing, hands itching for a camera that often wasn't there.

Keith, however, was not a photographer. He was a writer and a poet, and Pidge, who was staring at the scene with narrowed eyes, laptop momentarily forgotten, could only wonder what sort of things were going through that boy's head. He didn't seem like the overly sappy kind, so they hoped it wasn't any pompous line about Lance's blue eyes like the sea or the sky or some shit.

They shrugged and got back to their studying.

Not their business to go around playing matchmaker.

 

* * *

  
Do you know that feeling, as if nothing matters except one thing? The thing that's looming in the horizon, an upcoming important test, your marriage next month, the end of highschool, the biblical day of reckoning?

All seems to mute in comparison, white noise and background actors in the face of something that appears to be so insurmountable that there is _no way you're getting past it_. Your life will end, that is a fact, because it's impossible that the world will continue spinning afterwards.

But once it actually passes, and, unlike previous thought, the world does not implode, a weight seems to have been lifted off your shoulders, and nothing matters. Not even the event which caused such panic, since now you remember it with nostalgic laughter and lightheartedness, and a slight mindset of "oh, silly me!"

After a week of nearly killing himself to get Turner's assignment done, Keith felt exactly like that. He'd woken up exactly a week after getting late to class and being publicly humiliated, but this time he was okay. No rushing, no yelling Shiro, and, though he'd slept less than three hours the night before (like he'd been doing all week) Keith couldn't help but feel peaceful and fulfilled.

Keith walked across campus calmly just on principle. He took the time to feel the breeze touch his recently washed hair and fluff his—not _carefully picked_ ; he barely had enough wardrobe variety to do so, but at least it wasn't the I'm-so-late-who-cares-which-jeans randomness he'd experienced seven days prior, waking up in a hurry.

He entered the Castle of Lions, and painful flashbacks of the past few days assaulted his mind as if he were an ex soldier with PTSD instead of an overworked student. He'd walked in a haze though these halls, pulling all-nighter after all-nighter, and then having to attend, on the following day, to this building's classes and try not to collapse entirely from exhaustion.

As the deadline grew nearer, Keith didn't stop going to classes, but he was only going to work on Turner's assignment, sitting in the most unassuming, bland chair he could find. Must've worked, though. He hadn't been called out on his bad behaviour not even once in all the classes he'd done it in.

"Man," Shiro had whispered when Keith had shared his newfound ability, "that's amazing!"

Shiro's shoulders sagged, looking down, and Keith followed the line of sight. It was Shiro's prosthetic arm, the real one lost in his short seven-month period in the Army.

Keith frowned, wanting to say something about how Shiro was still capable, that he could still be as strong and sneaky as Keith or any bastard out there, prosthetic or not, but wasn't sure about how to say it without feeling too... bare, or vulnerable. He'd brushed it off, unsure.

Long story short, the week had been a Cheerios, Cup Noodles, instantaneous coffee hell, and he felt reinvigorated despite not having gotten any sleep. Actually, the amount of hours he'd gotten over the past few days must have added up to around sixteen hours total, since once on Wednesday he'd snoozed on the couch in the afternoon—accidentally, mind you—for about two hours. Aside from that, his sleeping patters were sleeping for more or less two hours everyday, and working his ass off in an indecently big assignment from Turner, aka The Demon Lucifer Rejected.

As he left Turner's classroom, however, Keith thought that he didn't felt much of anything. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence for him, prone to "bouts of dissociation", as his psychologist Dr. Zarkon once described, but Keith thought he'd be feeling something different. Something more. Not even the way Turner's smug smile morphed into an incredulous stare as he delivered the work he'd been assigned was able to shake that feeling of empty.

He decided to text Shiro, sitting on a bench to pull out his phone.

**Keith:** Shiro  
**Keith:** Hey  
**Keith:** Take me away  
**Keith:** I want an artery injection of caffeine asap

It took Shiro a couple minutes to answer, but he did not disappoint.

**Shiro:** Sounds great  
**Shiro:** Tell me where you are and I'll come meet you

Keith would protest, but his members felt as heavy as lead, and the prospect of picking them up to make his way to Shiro made his eyes nearly water in frustration and anticipated pain.

After Keith had said where he was, and waited about five minutes, Shiro sat next to him but without turning to face his brother.

"So..." he started in all originality, "how're you?"

Keith frowned, remembering Zarkon's description of the two 'how are you''s. _They either want to stroke their own ego and assuage themselves that they are nice people, or they actually care about you. It's always positive to be kind, but be specially mindful of that second one._

Keith supposed that Shiro was the second, caring one. He chose his words carefully.

"I... delivered my assignment to Turner but. Somehow I don't feel happy. Or sad. Or accomplished, for that matter. I feel empty. Disconcertingly empty."

Shiro's eyebrows creased, Keith's brother trying to understand.

"Hum." He scratched his fingers right beneath his white forelock. "Do you want to sleep? You look tired, and you might feel better afterwards."

Keith brushed it off. "No, let's go for some coffee. I'm tired but not sleepy."

Shiro shrugged and started to stand up from the bench.

"You restless?" Keith nodded, now standing too. "Just make sure you don't drink too much. You've already got an unhealthy amount of caffeine on your bloodstream."

"Yes, father."

They spent the whole walk to the coffee shop, The Lion's Den, Keith making fun of Shiro's protective ways, and Shiro ignoring it. When Keith said, "do you baby all your friends like this? Do you baby _Allura_?" was where Shiro drew the line with a warning look, Keith putting his hands up in surrender.

Just the prospective of drinking some thick, energizing black coffee already made his exhausted mind run a little faster, and he entered the Den inhaling deeply the scent of grains, whipped cream and sugar.

Paradise.

"Oh, look," Shiro elbowed him. "Those are my friends."

They started to make their way to the group of three, containing one small light-brown–haired person, an elegant white-haired woman and a tall boy who had his back to Shiro and Keith. Out of those, Keith recognized Allura, the woman, about whom Shiro had ranted when he'd gone home for Thanksgiving, with a white forelock and a "sorry, mum, love made me do it". Apparently, Allura had commented that she meant to paint her (previously black) hair white, and jokingly offered to do Shiro's also. Shiro, the fool, accepted immediately, if only for the chance to spend more time with her.

She had Shiro in the palm of her hand, and Keith had been meaning to check if she cared about his brother as much as he cared about her—though he wasn't in top condition to evaluate people, tired as he was. Nonetheless, Keith didn't want to see Shiro getting hurt again, and not even his social inadequacies, worsened by sleep deprivation, would stop him.

The small one, who looked brainy with round spectacles and vivid eyes, was probably Pidge, Matt's sibling. Keith pursed his lips, remembering nights of holding Shiro close and letting him cry until he fell asleep. He closed his eyes briefly to erase that image from his mind.

The third person's identity, however, Keith had no idea. By the time he and Shiro approached the table, the boy was saying,

"— _bond in a_ fun _way_." His voice was gruff and manly, but sounded a bit forced. " _Look at me, I'm Shiro and I hide the fact that_ I'm a _traitor_ behind a mask of niceness!"

Keith bristled, inhaling sharply. What the hell?

Shiro was a genuinely _nice person_. He'd suspected it at first, when he was twelve and even more closed off than he was now, inherently suspicious of the well-kept, mommy's boy Takashi. Now, a seasoned man with scars both physical and emotional, Keith related more to him, but, before all that, it had been difficult to... bond. However, ever since the time he'd punched Shiro—for wanting to talk about feelings and the things Keith had screaming nightmares about, and on the following night Keith had a bad dream again, only to be woken up by a purple eyed Shiro with his lucky plushie in his arms, offering it to Keith—he'd learned that, yes, some people were that nice.

Keith could feel his hackles rising, preparing himself to verbally reprimand that tactless boy, but Shiro beat him to it.

"Got something to say to me?" he asked. It caught Keith off guard, since that wasn't Shiro's insulted tone, but his mock offended one.

The boy turned around, making some noise as he moved the chair on the linoleum a bit, and pushed his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, to the small support point on the tip of his upturned nose.

The boy, Lance, Shiro had whispered discreetly in Keith's ear, flirted shamelessly with Shiro, in everything from the way he was looking coyly up at the man, to his smirk and voice inflection.

That _was_ flirting, right? Keith was pretty sure it was.

Matt's sibling moved their chair, making space for Keith and Shiro, and the former felt a bit guilty standing between his brother and Allura, his brother's crush. However, he supposed there wasn't much flirting to get done with Pidge there. Not that if Pidge _weren't_ there, Shiro wouldn't still hesitate to make an actual move, ever the honourable and loyal one, but it probably put a dapper on things.

After Lance made an inaccurate comment on double agents, Keith, who was very obsessed about anything involving conspiracy theories, felt obliged to correct him. When he interrupted the boy, Keith noticed that the first expression that went through his face was anger (it was all there; the eyebrows drawn together, the narrowed lips, and, if he took the glasses off—now pushed to their natural position, covering Lance's eyes—Keith was sure he would find a venomous glare). However, as soon as that microexpression appeared, it was replaced by something softer, with a pursing of lips and a slight tilt of his head. Was that the microexpression of a considering person? Keith wasn't sure. He'd never studied it before, hadn't been the subject of many considering gazes, if that was what Lance's gaze was. He felt the urge to remove those glasses (why was he wearing sunglasses indoors anyway?) and see what those eyes were doing.

"So hey," Lance said finally, face now laced by a smirk, full on with eyebrow waggles. "You wanna double over my horse?"

Keith had been so shocked, so out of his comfort zone, that even after Allura explained that it was merely part of Lance's personality, Keith couldn't help but stare at him as he ordered his coffee. He'd met outgoing people before. Mr. Coran, with whom he'd spent most of his teenage years, was the epitome of an extrovert himself. But that brand of talkativeness, the odd charm—was that the word for Lance? Charming?—flustered him much more than he'd been ready for. When Lance looked back and found Keith already looking at him,leaning on the counter, Keith's embarrassment wasn't enough for him to draw his eyes away.

After Keith came back to the table, two large coffees in hand and thinking, with a frown, that by the time he got to the second one, it'd be cold and disgusting, but it was too late to go back now. Picking up a straw (everything was better with straws, perhaps even cold coffee), he got diligently to work.

In a way that was more confusing than annoying, Shiro's friends seemed to actually be interested in his life and experiences in Altea up to the moment. It was all running smoothly, and Keith could feel himself loosening up the slightest bit, but at the mention of how Keith's bad experience last week, with Turner, was probably going to be a bad experience all throughout the semester, according to Pidge, Keith could feel his improved mood dampening like a dark cloud. Shiro's hand at his nape offered him some comfort and a grounding point, but he still nodded off for a while, head down.

When Keith refocused again, a boisterous voice was talking animatedly, and he raised his head, curious, to see Lance, glasses now up on his head and blue eyes on display, communicating with his whole body.

Lance was the sort of mesmerizing conversationalist who used hands, facial expressions, the shoulders and different voices for reactions and comments. It was like nothing Keith had ever seen before, the fluidity of water and the rising tide quality of his movements, something so peculiar Keith frowned, wondering if it had ever been written about before. Surely, some poet _somewhere_ had met someone whose very manner reminded them of the ripples of the moving sea. Keith thought deeply and wondered painstakingly, searching his memory for some literary movement that had done Lance justice, from the Medievals, to the Romantics, to the contemporaries. After a few minutes of consideration, Keith's eyes went wide in realization.

"Keith?" Shiro whispered, and Keith brushed it of, saying, "I'm fine."

But Keith wasn't fine. When they got to the dorm, Keith went straight to the fridge, looking for a cartoon of milk and drinking it in large gulps. Shiro looked at him worriedly, for Keith had been acting weird since the coffee house and hadn't said anything on their way back to the dorm.

Shiro broke the silence.

"You call milk your coping mechanism."

"I do."

"You say it comforts you."

"It does."

Another large gulp, and Keith brought his cup down with a white mustache.

"I'm fucked, Shiro."

He was expressionless as he said it, so Shiro wasn't sure what to think.

"Is it... Turner? Cuz I'm sure Pidge only meant—"

"No, it's not _Turner_ ," Keith curled his lips as if it were a preposterous suggestion. His eyes grew wide. "But now that you said it, I'm double fucked."

"Care to elaborate?"

"I'm the knight, Takashi." He put the cartoon inside the fridge, closed it, and turned to his brother, eyes wide, dark circles large, and milk mustache still on. "I'm laying on the edge of the lake, pale, weak and moribund, and the creature with wild eyes, full beautiful, a faery's child—"

"Uh!" Shiro interrupted excitedly. It wasn't everyday that this happened. "I know that poem! _La belle... mercy_?"

" _La Belle Dame sans Merci,_ a Ballad, or The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy. Yes, that's right."

"What's it have to do with anything?"

"You don't get it? _I'm_ the knight. _Lance_ ," his eyes looked panicked as he revealed his thoughts, "is the faery child."

Oh, Shiro thought. Was it—did Keith have a _crush_? And on  _Lance_? It'd never happened before. Not to this extent. Keith liked reading romantic stuff, but he wasn't one himself. In fact, with his alien theories, anarchist ideologies, and skeptical views of life and people, Keith was the most cynical individual Shiro'd ever met.

Shiro laughed—couldn't help it—and strode to Keith, grabbing his brother by the elbow and leading him towards his bedroom. He laughed some more, putting Keith to bed, cleaned his wet upper lip, and, if he got a pillow to the face when he said, "at least you'll die a happy man", it was worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've done and redone this... a lot. I had the planning all down, but once I wrote it, it didn't feel write. So I rewrote something else. And then I rewrote again, so here it is. I haven't polished as much as I wanted, because it got to a point in which I couldn't stand to read another word of this chap, but... hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> Come hit me up on Tumblr, I'm [tacaofodaci](http://tacaofodaci.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Have a nice week :))
> 
> PS: unfortunately, I couldn't fit in Hunk in this one, but I swear he'll be here!


	3. The Sophist and the Rocks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation, the semestrial chosen one, and a request on top on green green blades of grass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I write _one_ OC, and then I make her an unreasonable bitch. Figures.
> 
> Hey guys! I hope your Christmas was nice, if you celebrate it, and that your New Year will be fun, filled with delicious food, and a signal of a wonderful year to come! (((careful if you have pets, though, especially dogs. There are bindings that help with doggie nervousness with fireworks, so be safe and make sure your puppy is too!)))
> 
> I loved all of your comments and they've made me smile impossibly. You guys are seriously the most precious. Well, anyway, enjoy!
> 
> (as always, unbetaed, so any mistakes are my own)
> 
>  
> 
> _Disclaimer: no hate on Metallica or Metallica fans intended_

Keith, sitting in his dorm building's railing, was staring into the cross country field and regretting the ash taste at the bottom of his throat. Cigarettes, he'd found, weren't having their usual and welcomed effect of calming Keith and granting him some degree of piece of mind.

He couldn't stand being in his dorm anymore, and neither could he stand that University. Not even Shiro could help him with his dilemma, his brother a constant reminder of his problems.

He'd come to Altea University for no other reason other than Shiro's presence there, after all. Shiro, however, had chosen Altea for its world-renowned Business and Administration programme, still keeping his head about him even after the tragedies he'd seen in war and the loss of a loved one. Shiro knew what he wanted to do, was aware of what he needed to do to get there, and took it all in stride as he worked his hardest.

Altea was an expensive place. Not as expensive as an Ivy League, but expensive enough that Keith's parents, reasonably rich as they were, felt the strain of paying for two children to attend there. And Keith didn't even know what he wanted to do, unlike Shiro. He knew he wanted English Lit, but then what? He couldn't teach; had nothing against children, but often couldn't deal with their noise or interact with them properly. He couldn't translate, was only able to speak English, French, and had the vaguest knowledge of Latin. What else was there for him? Book critique, editor, _writer_?

In sum, he was going to be spending obscene amounts of his parents' hard earned money, since the moment he'd stepped in Altea, to the moment he would be leaving within four years. Money which was ill-applied in him.

Dropping the cigarette in his hand, he looked up as the cross country field just as some students in running gear rushed through the section visible to Keith. He'd thought about applying for cross country, football, the swimming team, or one of the Art clubs. Ultimately though, he ended up subscribing only to the gym, in fear of weeks to come during which he'd be too busy with assignments to even manage to attend. However, Keith had to recognize: like Lance had said two days before at the coffee shop, Altea had an impressive assortment of extracurriculars, but it all came with a considerable impact to one's budget.

Oh God. _Lance_. The other reason why Keith had been taking the time to think by himself.

Keith couldn't even claim oblivion, for he remembered everything with astounding clarity. Such were the downsides of a coffee-and-Red–Bull fueled sleepy high, in opposition to an alcohol haze. Reminiscing it now, his memories of the morning two days previous resembled a futuristic painting of a fast-running car—a bit blurry and shaky at the edges, but easily identifiable for what it was. In that sense, Keith remembered perfectly what had happened, and could only hope that everyone else also hadn't noticed his embarrassing staring at his brother's friend, pretty as he was.

But Keith knew many pretty people! His own brother, for example. Allura. The hot creative writing teacher, Rolo. Keith was used to being surrounded by good-looking folks, so Lance was in no way a big deal.

Keith pawed his pockets a bit roughly, looking for a lighter and his pack of cigs for the second time that day, holding a cigarette in between his lips to light it up with quick thumb movements. He took two shallow drags in.

It wasn't just his looks, Keith thought, antsy. His memories of Lance were particularly untouched by the uncertainty of his sleepiness at the time; it was, actually, the light hidden within those eyes, which Keith saw but a glimpse of as Lance babbled about photography. It was the grace in his hand movements, the ridiculous eyebrow waggle he did so often, how much he resembled a flame, or the ocean.

A photograph, something Lance seemed to love so, would never he able to capture the allure of fire or water, their fluidity and life, in a manner which would be at all just to the beauty they tried to emulate.

Sucking at the cigarette with a vengeance, in an attempt to extract more calming chemicals, Keith choked a bit on the smoke. Even his seasoned lungs, apparently, felt the strain of an almighty inhale such as that.

Keith chuckled at his mental choice of words, which led to him grimacing at the conclusion that his throat was a bit too tender for laughter.

"That has got," a voice said next to him out of nowhere. Only Keith's quick reflexes kept him from falling off the railing, "to be the most passive aggressive glare slash giggle I have ever seen."

Keith turned a decidingly giggle-less glare at the person who'd interrupted his quality alone-time.

" _Oh_. Pidge."

Pidge rolled their eyes, then jumped on top of the railing to sit by Keith's side. It was a remarkable feat and display of dexterity for someone that small, especially on a railing that high.

"Jeez, don't sound _too_ excited, or you might just cream your pants."

Keith's eyebrows shot up at the wording.

"I thank you for your concern for my laundry time. I'm sure that that would be an unpleasant stain to wash out."

Pidge erupted in laughter, a choking sound Keith remembered from the coffee shop.

"You are very welcome. It's nice to see some gratitude around here. After all, I'm not indoors playing videogames with my best friend right now because you were looking all forlorn and shit."

_Best friend..?_ "Oh." Keith waited two seconds to continue, aiming for casual. "Is Lance here? An—wait, why are _you_ here?"

The look Pidge shot him was solemn.

"Here as in, in this railing with you; here in dorm B-4; or here in the widest sense of the word, who am I, where did I come from and all that bullshit?"

Keith looked at them with narrowed eyes, trying to see if they'd laugh. That was a joke, right? From Pidge's face, he wasn't so sure.

What a peculiar person, he thought.

"The dorm, I guess. Though if you know any of those last ones, I confess that I'm interested."

"Well, _Lance_ ," Pidge said pointedly, and Keith's laughter died in a nervous gulp, "isn't here, but his roommate Hunk is, my other best friend. And this is also my dorm. We must've missed each other during meal time, I guess. I rarely ever see Shiro, too." Keith nodded, accepting the explanation. "The secrets of the universe are the reason why I'm doing physics, though. If I find anything, I'll be sure to tell you."

"Cool."

They shared a few moments of companionable silence. After a while, Keith tentatively broke it, voicing the thoughts which had him worried and a bit absent from the conversation he was having.

"Pidge?"

"Yea?"

"Have you ever... felt like you don't belong somewhere? Like you're either something entirely different and a misfit, or just full-on insufficient?"

Keith was staring straight ahead as he said it, but turned his head when Pidge responded. They were doing the same, mouth a firm set and eyebrows furrowed, staring intensely at some far-away point.

"Only every day since Matt's been declared MIA."

Keith's eyes widened, and, before he could guiltily apologize for forgetting something like that, Pidge continued.

"I feel like fitting is part recognizing yourself somewhere, and part the people who you're with. Not feeling the first one is tough, yeah, but the second... Well, let's just say it's been two years and it hasn't gotten any easier."

Keith frowned, pondering about what he would be leaving behind if he left Altea, asking his parents for the transfer he'd been considering.

Could he live without Shiro? The one year and seven months period during which he was training as a soldier, and then going to war, had been one of the worst of Keith's life. But at the same time, he knew it wasn't healthy to feel so bad in the University in which you were pursuing education.

Pidge's electric nature seemed to get the best of them, and their jump off the railing snapped Keith out of his musings. Pidge hit the floor of their portico entranceway with a light thump, turning to Keith once safely on the ground.

"It's been nice talking to you, Keith, but I promised I wouldn't leave Hunk alone for too long. My roommate is kind of a douche sometimes, and Hunk's too kind to ask someone to fuck off."

Pidge started to walk away, but before they were fully through the double white wooden doors, they called over their shoulder:

"And just so you know, Lance isn't here cuz he's very busy with his journalism major. Tough assignment coming up or summat. But I'm sure he wouldn't mind receiving a text from you. You should ask Shiro for his number."

Keith, who had been intending to spend a little while longer outside, found that the stilted scenery no longer held an appeal to him, and decided to go back to his dorm. There were only so many times he could see the runners completing a turn before the bucolic environment started to elicit homicidal tendencies in him.

If Keith stared at Shiro's back as he studied thick folders of official aspect on the couch, debating internally over whether he should ask for Lance's number or not—until finally giving up and picking up his studying materials himself, sighing—no one had to know.

 

* * *

 

A week after the coffee shop meeting, and a few days after the railing conversation, Keith concluded that he should've given Pidge more credit. Keith should've given Pidge so, _so_ much more credit, because they'd warned him about the ruthlessness of Turner post class 3, and now Keith knew for certain: he was the chosen one of the semester.

He'd arrived early, much like last week, but this time, didn't sit in the back from embarrassment, but also not in the front in an attempt to make a statement. Keith sat comfortably in a neutral medium, where the A/C wasn't too punishing and the distance to the front of the class would allow him to listen to the Professor's voice without effort. Keith was ready to start a good day, goddamn it. Altea might be so much more than what he deserved, with its fancy buildings and two bedroom dorms, but he might as well make the most of it while he had the chance.

Turner arrived when Keith had already taken his things out of his backpack and laid them carefully, in display like surgery instruments waiting to slice through tender meat. The irony of the fact that, leaving that class, Keith felt like _he'd_ been dissected was not lost on him later on.

"Hello, class," she greeted, and the students answered in various tones of ass-kissing. Keith even managed a weak "Hi" that went by unheard.

Turner had arrived right on time for the beginning of class, so her focus was more on taking her things out than on chatting up the students, plugging in her notebook to the projector cables.

"Chris, I really liked your paper from last week." A girl from the second row thanked her beamingly. "Fascinating line of thought. Really innovative."

Once the cables were all connected, the projector lit up with an elegant slide show. "Tommy. Your assessment of the different pioneers throughout history was refreshing. Your analysis, someone else's, or a researched hypothesis of sorts?"

A black boy with shoulder-length curly hair smiled sheepishly, sat close to Keith. "A bit of each, Prof."

Keith had been thinking, foolishly, that mayhap Turner wasn't so bad. We all have bad days, and class number one might've been one of hers. During class two she had been a chaotic neutral, but seeing her interacting with his classmates, all multitasking efficiency, had Keith wondering if—"Kogane."

Did someone just—?

"Kogane."

It took him a few beats to register, and he dropped the pencil he'd been fiddling with.

"Huh?" was the insightful answer.

"Your assignment, kid," her voice was harsh, much harsher than it had been with Chris or Tommy. "You did well enough in the objective questions, but the discursive ones were... not up to my standard."

A few of the students snickered, but most just stared at the scene unraveling with wide eyes.

"I didn't cheat on the objective ones, if that's what you're implying!" Keith protested. He could feel his upper lip pulling back in a sneer, but couldn't do much in terms of containing his anger, exterior or otherwise.

He'd spent a week of sleepless nights working his ass off in that thing! It had taken him nearly three days to catch up with his sleeping hours, even after it had been delivered!

Turner's thin eyebrow formed an impressive arch, and her smiling eyes but severely set mouth looked condescending.

"I didn't say that."

"What was wrong with my discursive questions?!"

It wasn't anything to write home about, but since they were the first ones he'd done, he'd had a clear mind and a clearer goal; Keith knew that his answers were, at the very least, straightforward, concise and well-planned. There were only three discursive questions, all very vague and open to interpretation, so Keith had thought that it was the best way to go about it.

Apparently not.

"Have you no originality?" Turner inquired back, voice so inflectionless that it barely registered as a question. She wasn't moving anymore, things all set for the beginning of the class, so her attention was all focused on Keith. "What you said about the influences of the Medieval and Romantic authors has been said a thousand times, but surprisingly, in the exact same way as you did."

Keith should shut up. He should take the critic, try and improve, and _shut up._

"I guess," he said, venomous mouth working unconnected to his brain, "that I should just drop English Lit, become an archaeologist, find myself a lost work of the Medieval, and offer you some _novelty_."

The class was eerily silent now, Keith noticed. Odd that silence would make him regain awareness of his surroundings, rather than noise. He imagined himself as one of the other students, seeing a fellow classmate going through that. Would he stand up and protest? Would he do anything, like he remembered a girl in highschool doing, to defend a shy boy from the math teacher?

He wondered how it would be like if he could be a spider, or a flea, perhaps even an ant. Would he possibly feel any more insignificant than he felt at the moment?

That was an awful lot of insignificance, then. Keith spared a pitying and sympathetic thought to all the suffering insects in the world.

"I think you should." She said after what seemed like a long time, and touched the keyboard of her notebook, changing the presentation to its next slide. "If ubiquitous common sense is the best you can do, feel free to drop, prodigy." The title rolled off her tongue, sarcastic despite the lack of inflection. "Altea is no place for the mediocre, and neither is my class."

Before Keith could even hope to respond, Turner was already starting the class, as if the past few minutes hadn't happened. No student protested, or seemed to think it was odd. Keith felt like crying, her words having hit where it hurt the most, but he'd never been much of a crier. He sort of resented it, however, for the emotional liberation of spilling a tear or two sounded heavenly in the context of his scrambled brain. Keith took a deep breath in, a long exhale out, and forced his hands to relax enough that his dull nails would stop biting into his palms. Reddish half moons marked the places where the skin had almost been broken.

Turner's lecture that day was sort of dull. Keith forced himself to pay attention because he was still feeling guilty about missing nearly a week of classes to get the Professor's assignment done, but he did so only on principle. It wasn't as if it were fascinating or anything (though it sort of was), and Keith told himself that the only thing that made his attention worthwhile was the announcement at the end of class.

"So, students," she said, and handed a pile of papers over to a student who'd volunteered to deliver it to the rest of the class. "If you've talked about me with any of my alumni from the previous semesters, you know that I always do a semestrial assignment on top of the tests and the fortnight assignments."

A few catcalls and cries of "I heard no such thing!", and Turner continued to talk as she turned her back to the class and started to write on the board.

"I always ask an analysis of you, only one more profound than the ones I require every two weeks." She'd written, _POETRY_ , and underneath, one beneath the other like a listing, _Sonnet, Limerick, Haiku, Narrative*, Epic*, Free Verse._

Turner turned around, wiping chalk dust on her gray dress pants. "You see those asterisks there? They are, not coincidentally, marking the longest poems. If you choose either narrative poems or epic poems, the second part of your assignment will be somewhat freer, and more unconnected to the first one." She did a short pause, looking around the students. Her small intelligent eyes looked animated. "And that second part is where things get a little different from what your friends might've told you."

Keith pursed his lips, the part of him that hated Turner—he thought that he was justified in that one—battling internally the part that was interested in what she had to say. The blasted woman had probably been a sophist on a past life, proficient at oratory and rhetoric, but still hated by Aristotle (in Turner's case, by Keith) for their lack of morals.

Appeased that he was justified in both his interest and hatred, Keith tuned in to what the Professor was saying.

"—been trying for years, but this semester I finally managed to convince the board. Admittedly, creative writing is where you should probably be doing it, but I managed to convince them of the benefits of doing it graded, and by a professor like myself."

Keith had lost the beginning of that, so he frowned, trying to understand the meaning of the speech with only half the context.

When the girl going around the class to deliver Turner's papers stopped by his desk, she offered him a tiny but sympathetic smile, and he tried to offer her one in return—though he most likely failed.

"Don't mind her," she whispered, her high, feminine voice suiting her small stature and plump form perfectly.

Before Keith could ask, she had moved on to the next student.

Turner continued talking, but Keith was otherwise occupied reading over the paper that had just been delivered. It was a simple thing with straightforward commands, but he had the feeling that, if applied, it would prove to be slightly more difficult.

 

_Choose one (1) of the following: Sonnet, Limerick, Haiku, Narrative, Epic, Free Verse._

_Explain what it is/was, the main authors, historical trajectory, and social importance._

_Choose one (1) author of the chosen types of poetry, researching their biography, main poems, influences, social importance, and historical context._

_Write one (1) poem of the chosen type, being it (or not) based on your chosen author._

OBS.1: _Should you pick Narrative or Epic genres, you can choose any of the other types (Sonnet, Limerick, Haiku, Narrative, Epic, Free Verse) for your poem._

OBS.2: _Authorship is an absolute requirement. Your assignment will be nulled should you plagiate either the analysis or your poem._

OBS.3: _Next class, I, Professor S.L. Turner, will go over your choices alongside you to determine if you have been wise in your pickings._

 

 "Class!" A voice barked. "Eyes on me. You have seven days to read that paper, and with me..." she checked her wristwatch, "you have all but two minutes."

Satisfied with the students' attention, she proceeded.

"Usually, I demand quality. In this assignment, I will accept nothing but excellency. So no, David, you can't just walk in with a sloppy free verse and call it a day, unless you think you're some Walt Whitman in the making. Do you _think_ you are a Walt Whitman in the making?"

The boy named David, looking contrite but amused, shook his head.

"Okay, the class is about to finish, so I'll see your sorry asses next week. Come with a clear planning, or I won't even hear you out. You are free to go."

As soon as those words left Turner's mouth, sounds of scrapping chairs and clacking objects filled the air, and soon, people were standing to leave the classroom. Keith threw all of his carefully set pens, pencils and papers back inside his backpack, looking warily at Turner up front doing the same, albeit with more caution and care. He wondered if he should go talk to her, ask for some guidance or a justification for that blatant witch hunt he'd been suffering, but then remembered the words of the girl who handed over the assignment paper.

He looked at the door just in time to see her blond head disappearing, so asking her what she meant wasn't an option. _Don't mind her. Don't mind her._

Was Turner just naturally rude, insane and toxic? Was there something in Keith that triggered it? Was it what Pidge had said, just the fact that he was the chosen one of the semester?

Shaking his head, Keith left the classroom with downcast eyes, hoping to avoid all sort of contact. If every single student didn't already know him after the roast of the first week, they certainly knew him now, after he yelled at one of the most respected members of Altea's faculty. He'd conversed with a couple of nice girls after class two, Lizzie and... Martha? Carla? It honestly didn't matter. No one would want to be friends with the rage-filled loser now, anyway.

Keith frowned at how highschool-ish and emo that sounded. He'd thought that he'd left all that buried deep inside his sixteen-year-old self, but apparently not.

"Keith!" someone yelled. Despite the fact that he'd just been thinking that no one would reach out for him, he couldn't help the way he instinctively turned around at the noise, the tiniest bit hopeful. "Keith!"

The classroom right next to his had also just vacated, so, considering that each of those held approximately fifty students, the hallway was _packed_. There were so many rich young adults that Keith wondered if he somehow fell from the axis of his current universe and into an alternate Disney movie reality. Last time he'd seen that many Caucasian males with long hair, he'd been in a Metallica concert right before his love for metal dwindled into a slight repulse for all the cacophony.

Keith couldn't see from whom the call had come from in the relative crowd, and, in spite of all his squinting, he only managed to identify the source when they'd pushed their way through the students and were left standing right in front of Keith. The two still boys were resembling a rock in the middle of a river, around which the water would flow, but they were left unmoved. Sometimes, however, the push and pull would force them a little closer and a little tighter, as if the students walking away from the classrooms wanted them to indeed imitate a rock, arms solid around each other and virtually unmoving, in the middle of the bright, window-filled hallway.

Keith only noticed that he'd been staring when Lance broke the silence between them, talking slightly louder than normal to be heard over the _stomp stomp stomp_ of feet and the rumble of conversation.

"Fancy meeting you here, huh?" asked a boy who was dark skinned and shortish haired, and Keith nearly laughed as he considered the contrast of him in relation to the stereotypical heavy metal fan.

As he registered Lance's words, however, the laughter that never was melded into into a frown.

"But..." Keith started, puzzled, "you called for me."

Lance's head tilted right, like a confused puppy, and he released a slightly disbelieving chuckle. "Yeah, I guess I did."

Someone bumped into Lance, and he was forced a few inches forward as he regained his balance. Keith, whose mouth was directly in front of Lance's chin, a few centimeters apart, noticed that they had a slight height difference of two, perhaps three inches, and noticed also how the sunlight coming from the windows by his left side illuminated Lance's complexion.

"Uh, is there anything you want to tell me?"

"Yeah, yeah!" Lance agreed, his face brightening up as if only when Keith inquired, did he remember whatever it was that he wanted to say. "Can we—"someone bumped into him again, and he grimaced with an angry twist of his mouth. "Fuckin' jerks." He then addressed Keith, voice and face softer. "Sorry Keith, uh, can we go somewhere quieter? Perhaps less crowded?"

Keith nodded, and turned around without waiting for Lance's reaction. Too many books and too many movies echoed in his head at the words "somewhere quieter", and not looking at Lance at the moment seemed like the best course of action.

He managed to spin in his heels without difficulty, since Lance provided a sort of barrier from the flux of students, and walked away trusting Lance to follow him. Having his back to the other boy helped in the sense that, Keith could frown, look at his feet in despair, clean his sweaty palms in his jeans, and overall look as nervous as he felt, and not be seen—by anyone of relevance, at least. He thought about stopping at one of the less crowded hallways, but an echo-y, empty place with Lance sounded as frightening as a playful session of roughhousing with a dragon.

Keith let himself be led by the flow of students into the sunny outside of the Castle of Lions, and stopped a few feet away from the wide open white wooden doors, standing on top of Altea's unnaturally green grass.

"So..." Lance's voice said behind him, only much closer than Keith had expected. Keith masked his scared jump with a rolling of his shoulders, like he was stretching.

He turned around, and, finding some resistance before Lance let go, Keith noticed that the other boy had been holding onto a strap of his backpack as they walked.

Not knowing what to think of that, Keith waited, and, as Lance just kept scratching his bottom teeth against his upper lip and staring at him, decided to break the awkward silence.

"Sunny day, huh? I've always wondered how they keep the grass alive if no one ever waters it. The sun can't be good, as well. All that... evaporation."

Lance's eyebrows shot up, but he didn't say anything about the randomness or the pitiful conversation starter. Zarkon used to say that, if Keith didn't know what to say, but needed to say something, not even the chichéd weather talk was to be dismissed, and Keith definitely felt the need to fill in that silence.

"I figure they have some sort of... automatic irrigation system, or something. Probably during the night, because of..." Lance smiled cheekily, "all that evaporation."

Albeit mocking, Lance didn't sound rude, and, at a loss of what to do now, Keith just stared back. He couldn't very well talk about the weather again, could he? What else was there to say, how cotton candy-ish the clouds looked? Keith had the presence of mind to know when he was being ridiculous, and there was only so much humiliation he could take in a spam of twenty-four hours.

_Finally_ , Lance said something.

"Well, I'm sorry, I'm just.. not sure how to ask you this, I guess?" He rubbed at his collarbones with his right hand, tiny beads of sweat collecting in certain parts of his face and neck. "First, uh, this week's been crazy, and I guess you can get that, from how tired you were at the coffee shop, last week? What with my Journalism major, which sucks major ass, but I'm minoring in Photography too. It was my first pick, but my mum was worried about how much money I would be making in a profession like that? But it's still my favourite, and I have this assignment, and I need to photograph someone. I was wondering if you could—y'know, _be_ that someone. For me." Lance shook his head quickly, just as soon as those words had left his mouth. "Nono, for like. For my assignment."

Lance quieted after that, compressing his lips as if needing to physically keep himself from talking.

"Me?" Keith asked a bit disbelieving. From how confusing Lance's speech had been, it wasn't unlikely that he had misunderstood or misinterpreted. "But I'm not a model."

"Not asking you to be. You just... stand the way I tell you to, and I'll do my photographer mumbo jumbo."

"But I—" Keith was having a hard time understanding that. "I can't even take frontal camera pictures. My face just looks slack when I try, like. Like a fish."

His profile image in the few social media apps he had downloaded on his cellphone was even a picture his mother had taken of Keith, bundled up in warm clothes with his back to the camera. The focus was, quite honestly, in the scenery of Canada, to where they'd traveled about a year back; the Rocky Mountains presenting themselves a much more interesting thing to photograph. He liked the picture well enough, more because of the beautiful slopes and the impossibly blue lake stretching lazily in the midst of the overpowering mounts, than because of any influence of his own.

"I guarantee you," Lance said, and Keith's attention snapped back to him. Mind still half set on the Canadian Rockies, he noticed how Lance's eyes resembled the lake of his one and only good photograph: his irises also had the same sort of hypnotizing colourfulness, also a bit unsettling, especially while amplified by the sun overhead, and just on this side of disturbing. "There are miles of differences between a selfie and photographs taken by someone with a proper camera, and even only the smallest amount of skill."

Keith was still unconvinced. His eyes followed the downslope of a drop of sweat down Lance's temple.

"It's just an assignment, for the teacher! I won't show it to anyone, I _swear_."

"Why me? There are many students more beautiful than me in this University." Lance grimaced, but Keith continued talking. "I don't... mean to be rude, but I'm sure you know one of them, and that they'd be delighted to help you."

_Just take a frontal camera photo. If your Professor doesn't give you top marks, they're a fool._

Lance taking a photo of himself seemed like the best option, no? He belonged immortalized in a poem, not on Keith's University with sweat beading on top of his upper lip; but perpetuated in a picture couldn't be all that bad. Also, he wouldn't have problems with schedule, posing, or conflicts of interest.

"You fit the aesthetic I was going for," was the vague response. The bell rang from the bell tower, signing that it was time for the next class. Lance's forehead creased, and he pursed his lips in an almost pout. "I need to go now. Can I at least have your number? I promise I won't bother you too much."

Keith turned his head to the side, looking at the slightly distant forms of the dorm buildings, Ancient Greece-esque, and wondered how he came to be here, in this expensive, suffocating place, with the name of Keith Kogane, being asked to model by a beautiful boy sweating under the punishing sun, right on top of the greenest blades of grass in the continent.

If he'd been taken by another family, would he be laying next to a dumpster, threading the thin line between very high and overdosing? Would he be a church boy, or an aspiring doctor; a pickpocket, or already would've made it to vermin food?

"Nine-seven-nine-fiv—" "What?"

Lance's voice sounded a bit panicky. He should be, most Professors in Altea didn't tolerate lateness, and if he knew what was best for him, he would've stopped prodding Keith the moment the bell rang.

"I'm telling you my number." Keith ripped his eyes away from the dorms, and looked back at Lance. The boy looked quite disbelieving, as if he had been sure that Keith would deny him. "Don't you have class now?"

"O--I'm... Yeah, sure." He laughed breathlessly, pawing at his pant back pockets until he found his phone. "Can you tell me again, please?"

Keith repeated the numbers, and managed to not flinch too much when Lance hugged him quickly before bolting away.

Seeing Lance's retreating back, hurrying towards the Castle, Keith wondered if he had just agreed to enter the Elfin grot with the faery child, and would soon be waking up by a Canadian lake, guttered, lonely, and being progressively taken over by pallor mortis, the faery in question nowhere to be seen. Most likely running around the meads, looking for another weak, enamoured Knight to capture, for photographs and a sluggish death.

Still, he allowed himself a mental pat on the back. He'd managed a perfectly normal conversation with Lance. Things might not be as bad as he'd thought. He could see this nonsense infatuation withering already, and all should be fine given a few weeks.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a playlist I've been dying to share, but it kind of... spoils a bit of what's to come, if that makes sense? So I'll probably only put it here after things are set in course. But this fic's namesake, Writer In The Dark, is a great song that I love very very much.
> 
> Share your thoughts with me?
> 
> Bye <3


	4. With a Little Help from My Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All you need is love love love, and all that bullshit. But actually, sometimes all you needed is a different point of view. Just careful with crossing the thin line between helpful and very, very intrusive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heey :) it is me, Júlia. (if you didn't already know my name; I have a feeling hat I haven't mentioned it here)  
> Well, the excuse for this is... I guess I just really wanted to play with povs? But it probably ended up sounding a bit weird lol ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ And I just really wanted a silly chap because... Life's been serious enough lately haha  
> Hope you've had a lovely New Year :)
> 
> As always, unbetaed so, any mistakes are my dumb ass' fault ;)

**Saturday • 4:32pm**

 

_Hey Keith_

_It’s Lance here. Shiros friend_

Lance took his cellphone out of Hunk’s hands forcibly, to which Hunk let out a cry, clutching his wrist where his friend’s nail had scratched painfully.

“What the fuck, Hunk?” Lance shrieked, but moved closer to inspect where he’d hurt him, grimacing in guilt. “Sorry about that. Want some ice? Or a band-aid?”

Hunk shook his head, the pain already having subsided after the initial shock. “It’s cool, buddy.”

“But again, _what the fuck?_ ” Lance propped himself up on the bed, and held his phone against his chest, as if Hunk was about to pounce at any second. ”He knows who I am. He’s seen me _twice_.”

Hunk suppressed a grin at his friend’s antics. “Sorry. Hadn’t thought about that.”

Hunk had been talking to Shay, texting instead of calling, since her roommate had been studying, until Lance walking back and forth on their dorm living room proved to be too much for him to tolerate in his peripheral vision.

Lance had said that he needed an approach so smooth that Keith would (1) agree to model for him, and (2) realise that they were meant to be, written in the stars, Bonnie and Clyde, faithful lovers, the whole shebang. Then, all that would be left for them to do was (a) sign the marriage papers, and (b) adopt two lovely kitties, Marilyn and Janis.

Then, after that overly sappy, but quite Lance-esque explanation, Hunk had said those five dreaded words.

Not _Luke, I am your father_ , or _can you pass the salt._

He’d said, stupidly, _Do you want some help?_

And Lance had jumped at that opportunity, because, apparently, the fact that Hunk texted his girlfriend meant that he was an expert at seduction via text messages.

“Of course he knows me,” Lance repeated, unwavering bravado so alike a defence mechanism that it clued Hunk in on Lance’s underlying insecurities. “I’m unforgettable.”

Lance pursed his lips and moved his thumbs quickly over the phone screen.

“What’re you typing?” Hunk asked, a bit too invested.

However, he figured that, since Shay was probably studying now after he’d brushed her off, and there was nothing else for him to do, once in the rain, he might as well be getting wet, right?

After all, it had been a while since Hunk had looked at love through the excessively bright and worshipping lenses of the newly infatuated, on a stable relationship with Shay for over a year now. He loved her with all his heart, and wouldn’t change the gentle, calm acceptance and warmth they had for nothing in this world, but there was a certain appeal in seeing love on course like this.

 _Jesus_ , he sounded like an old married man. Hunk couldn’t be happier about it.

“Just… a hello,” Lance said, paused, and typed some more, “… and choosing a few photos from my blog to send. Just for him to get a feel of the art, you see.”

Hunk crawled over the sofa toward Lance to see what his friend had done. Looking over his Lance’s shoulder, he let out a loud laugh.

“ _Duuude_ ,” Hunk dragged, giggling, “you have no idea how to warm the oven, do you?”

The offhand comment made Lance frown, but his slight pout looked a bit confused.

“Well, tell me.” Hunk removed the cellphone from his friend’s hands with care as Lance spoke acidly. “How does one ‘ _warm the oven_ ’?”

Hunk, majoring in Mechanical Engineering and minoring in Culinary, often used metaphors and references of his courses in daily conversations, but usually it didn’t make Lance as irritated as it seemed to have done now. However, Hunk knew Lance, and that anger was only his flair for the dramatics speaking. A wave of amusement and a fearful shiver ran simultaneously through Hunk’s body when he thought about what actually angry Lance was like. Thank God that it was a very rare occurrence.

“That’s why I’m the only one among us that’s dating,” Hunk couldn’t resist the playful jab, and laughed heartily when it made Lance pout further. “Dude, I love you, but you’re totally clueless about subtle wooing.”

Lance sputtered and protested, “This is strictly academical texting! I need him for an assignment, is all!”

Hunk, eyebrows raised, refrained from commenting on how Lance had been gushing about his and Keith’s wedding ceremony not too long ago.

“Whatever you say, Lance. And you warm the oven,” he deleted all that Lance had typed except for the ‘ _Hey'_ , “by readying the field before you kick the flirting up a notch. Kind of like how you have to preheat for turkeys, or cakes.”

Lance crossed his arms moodily, but was looking nonetheless interested in Hunk’s reasonings. Hunk smiled to himself and greeted Keith via text, under the guise of Lance McClain and giddy at the opportunities the situation presented.

Man, this was nicer than the dating games he and Shay like to play sometimes.

 

* * *

 

**Saturday • 4:56pm**

 

 **Unknown number:** Hey keith

 **Unknown number:** This is lance, finally had the time to text ya

 **Unknown number:** Altea is so hectic lol

 **Unknown number:** So… how r you?

Keith stared at his cellphone for a long moment, worrying at his bottom lip.

“I thought you were _recovering_ ,” Shiro mocked from behind Keith’s back.

He’d agreed to help his brother, but Shiro was no saint, and couldn’t pass up an opportunity to tease. And Keith had been so confident when he’d gotten home after giving Lance his phone number.

“Lance was waiting for me outside of Turner’s classroom today, Shiro,” he’d said, the picture of nonchalance as they sat in front of the TV. “He wants me to model for a Photography assignment of his, and wouldn’t let up, so I gave him my number. Might be easier to tell him no once and for all if I’m not seeing him, right? I’m recovering from my infatuation, but he’s still. Persuasive.”

Shiro should’ve known it was all projected courage, there in the way Keith refused to stare at him and kept fiddling with the bottom of his shirt.

“Shut up,” Keith grumbled now, a few days later and much less blasé; even looking a bit pained. “How do I answer this?”

Before responding, Shiro stretched his back purposefully, popping his vertebrae for show like a cat basking in the sun; he, basking in Keith’s moody stare—and, with a slightly sadistic streak, finding it amusing as his brother got progressively more worked up.

“Tell me if you’re not up for it, and I’ll figure it out,” Keith finally snapped.

Shiro had been in his bedroom getting some reading done for one of his classes, when Keith had entered so shrunk into himself that Shiro could almost see the tail between his legs and his downturned ears twitching sadly. At that ridiculous but adorable mental image, Shiro had burst out laughing.

“Who the hell stole your bone?” he’d asked, grin still on, as Keith sat next to him on the mattress.

“I… don’t know how to answer this. I don’t want to be photographed but I also don’t want to be mean to Lance.”

Keith had offered Shiro his phone, an unknown number having texted him a few times.

“Oh. _Oh_. So photographer boy finally texted, huh?”

Keith bristled, hating the nickname Shiro had given him, and all the jokes that came along with it. Shiro found it incredibly amusing that his brother seemed to be crushing on a boy who was simultaneously crushing on him too. Though it seemed to be mostly puppy love, Shiro wondered if—

“Are you helping or not?” Keith asked brisky, interrupting Shiro’s line of thought.

Shiro laughed again and ruffled his brother’s hair, Keith pulling his head away from Shiro’s grasp with an annoyed huff.

“Well, lemme see what we’re dealing with here.”

 

* * *

 

**Saturday • 5:03pm**

 

 **Keith:** Heeey :)

 **Keith:** Yea, this unis got us crazy occupied haha

 **Keith:** I’m fine thnx, how’re you?

“Hunk!” Lance shrieked, and Hunk repressed a groan.

He loved mechanics as much as he loved cooking, but often it required much more studying time than Culinary did, time which Lance seemed adamant on lot allowing Hunk to get. He would be failing half his classes if he continued at this rate.

“He answered!”

Hunk had sent Lance’s texts about half an hour earlier, and, after five minutes of waiting, during which Keith didn’t respond, Hunk had decided to use his time in more productive ways—namely Physics—and left Lance alone to stare at his phone screen intensely. He seemed to think that the strength of his stare alone would will Keith to respond to the messages, but hey. Hunk was no monster. Why kill a lovey dovey boy’s hopes? If Lance wanted to think he was some grown up Matilda, Hunk would be one hundred percent willing to be Miss Honey for his buddy.

No more studying time for him, though, Hunk concluded sadly. He barely had the time to close his textbook before a cellphone was being shoved at his face.

Hunk’s eyes scanned the words quickly, practically on instinct.

“Are you sure,” he asked carefully, lifting his head to look at Lance, a ball of vibrating, barely contained energy staring at him from the foot of his bed, “that this is the same Keith that you described as, and here I quote you, _aloof, distant, and very very pretty_?”

Lance’s forehead creased. “He _is_ very, very pretty.” The other piece of information seemed to register. “Perhaps he’s just… a bad live conversationalist? It’s easier to feel shy when you’re face to face, I guess.”

Hunk shrugged. “At least we made the right call being friendly.”

Then he started typing.

 

* * *

 

**Saturday • 5:05pm**

 

 **Lance <3:** Im great thanx

 **Lance <3:** So bout that photo ;))

“You sure,” Shiro started, looking up at Keith with a raised eyebrow, “he isn’t just trying to pull the Jack Dawson on you?”

Keith, who had been frowning at the name Shiro had set as Lance’s contact, looked up at his amused looking brother. “Jack Dawson?”

Shiro, face unimpressed and judgemental, replied, “We’ve seen that movie before, Keith. The one with the iceberg.”

Keith roamed his head in search of that reference, staring daggers into the bedsheets as he thought, and—“Oh. _Oh_.”

Shiro did an exaggerated eyebrow waggle, which got interrupted as a pillow hit him square in the face.

“Fuck off, it’s not like that.”

Shiro laughed, raising his hands up in surrender. However, as he looked at the phone, and up at Keith’s blushing face, then back at the phone, he sobered up immediately.

He stared at his brother for a few seconds, thoughts running rapid-fire through his mind, resisting the temptation to scream _Eureka!_ like a modern Archimedes as he made the connection that he wasn’t sure how he’d missed before.

That perhaps, this wasn’t just puppy love. Okay, Lance did seem to change the object of his affections fairly quickly, but the boy was also not as superficial as he pretended to be. And Keith—Keith had never, in his life, liked anyone. That was the main reason why it had been so amusing to watch him fumble around with a milk glass in hand and poetic comparisons for Lance’s… beauty? Liveliness?

Shiro wasn’t sure.

He usually didn’t like meddling with Keith’s life, for his brother knew what was best for him and was overall a very responsible person. However, Keith’s romantic experience was frankly quite close to none, whilst Shiro’s wasn’t. Was it not a good brother’s duty to try and help the other, when the boy your brother has a crush on is a good person, and when said brother knew that they could make it work out, if only with a _little_ push?

Shiro could see, even now, in his dorm bed next to Keith, the good things that Lance would do for his brother. Keith felt things, Shiro knew, though many claimed otherwise. He was passionate, empathetic and kind. And, though he’d never said “I love you” to anyone, not to Shiro and not to their parents, it didn’t mean that he didn’t feel it; if not love, _love_ , than at least some high degree of affection.

Lance, however, felt and _said that he felt it_. When Shiro had first met him, he had been talking to Allura when the dark shape of a tall, lanky boy came running out of nowhere, jumping on top of her and hugging her fiercely. He’d kissed her cheeks so many times, arms tight around her neck, that Shiro had started to feel uncomfortable and the slightest bit jealous.

”This is,” Allura had said, laughing as her face was peppered with kisses, “my—Oh, quit it, Lance! Sorry, Shiro, this is my cousin. He is… affectionate.”

And with the rest of his close friends too. Shiro saw how deeply Lance cared about Pidge and Hunk, getting Pidge cramp medicine even when they felt too embarrassed to buy it themselves, or to ask leave from a class because of the pain. He also bought random food and special ingredients, whenever those were available on one of the two supermarkets they had on their small university town. The more exotic the better, so that Hunk could experiment for fun, or for his cooking classes; all sorts of spices, tubers and veggies.

That thoughtful caring, that selfless giving, _that’s_ what Shiro thought that Keith deserved. It hadn’t occurred to Shiro as Lance had demonstrated a certain degree of interest in Keith back at the coffee shop, but it had been just an offhand comment on Keith’s looks, after all. But now he saw it, that not only Keith deserved it; he _needed it_. Needed someone to help him grow as a person and become more comfortable in his own skin. He could spend a thousand years in therapy with Zarkon, but, as it was the unofficial mantra of the Business graduates, nothing would ever equal firsthand experience.

So Shiro made a decision.

And he typed.

 

* * *

 

**Saturday • 5:06pm**

 

_If I agree to let u photograph me_

_Will u make me look nice?_

Hunk covered his ears. Damn Lance and his powerful shriek.

“HUNK, HE’LL LET ME, HE’LL LET ME!”

“I’M RIGHT NEXT TO YOU, LANCE,” Hunk boomed in response. His tympanum was probably severed beyond repair now. “ _I_ _am seeing it!_ ”

Lance continued on, as if Hunk hadn’t said anything. In his defence, however, he managed to keep his voice down through a wise whisper-shouting technique.

“Omg omg omg.” He’d literally said, o-m-g, o-m-g, o-m-g. “Hunk, he’ll let me! I’ll photograph him, and we’ll spend time together, and he’s _so pretty!_ ”

Hunk wondered, absentmindedly, if literally splitting your face in half was a real possibility—or, in this case, a real danger. Kind of how the Joker did, only without the knife. If it were, Lance was more than halfway there already.

Would Hunk be able to see his friend’s face tearing and bleeding from his joy? Hunk shuddered at the repulsive mental image. No matter how many animals he cut for Culinary classes, it was never pleasant butchering something that once breathed, much less seeing or imagining gorey things happening to your best friend.

“So, what do I say now?” Hunk asked, still kind of worried about the width of Lance’s beaming grin. “I got you where you wanted. A photography date.”

“Ask him, ask him!” Lance replied excitedly, like a child. “Ask him which day is best for him! Well, there are some days that are kinda shitty for me, but I’ll make sure to clean my schedule.”

Hunk typed, **When’s it best 4u?** , but felt his mind drifting away.

He’d seen Lance infatuated before. Many times, in fact. Last time, it had been with a girl from Fashion Design, Nyma, at it had been one of the worst Hunk had ever seen of Lance Crushes.

There was just something about this Keith guy, though…

Hunk figured that he’d just have to meet him sometime, give him the “What are your intentions with my friend?” speech, if he looked too seedy and prone to heartbreaking.

Lance had never crushed so hard, but the more the love, the more the potential of hurt, Hunk’s mum used to say.

Lance extended his hand, taking back the phone, and he looked at Hunk with wide earnest eyes.

“Thanks, bro.” He grinned again, though a bit more subdued than before. “I got a date, Hunk.”

Hunk snorted. “No, you don’t, Lance.”

“No, I don’t, mi amigo,” Lance agreed without an ounce of sadness. “But I will. Soon.”

And you think that was the end of it? Oh, no no. Lance then proceeded in explaining all of the wonderful dates he would be taking Keith, from the one he would ask during the photoshoot, to the one during which he would propose, a decent amount of years from now.

Hunk pretended to be annoyed.

 

* * *

 

**Sunday • 9:00am**

 

After Shiro had looked up into Keith’s expectant face and inquired, “Lance is asking which days are you free?” Keith had snatched the phone from Shiro’s grasp so quickly that it was a wonder that the movement didn’t break the sound barrier.

“What the fuck, Shiro?” he’d said, a bit faint, rising up from his spot on the bed and making a beeline for his own bedroom.

Shiro had had a few seconds to reflect on what he’d done, during which he concluded that he had perhaps maybe by chance stepped out of line here, when Keith’s door shut so hard Shiro had to check that it hadn’t left a crack in the ceiling. Shiro had thought about trying to talk to Keith at the moment, perhaps try and knock at his door (which would undoubtedly be locked), but chose instead to only say a quiet, “I am sorry, Keith. It was uncalled for and a disrespect to an explicit request you made.”

He’d had good intentions, okay? He wanted Keith to be happy. He wanted Keith to be more open, and _comfortable_ about being open.

Somehow, it didn’t even occur to him to consider how Keith might feel on the subject of pursuing Keith’s happiness. It did sound terribly arrogant and self-righteous now that Shiro thought about it.

Keith hadn’t responded, but Shiro wasn’t expecting him to. He was probably more embarrassed and frustrated than angry, and Shiro was feeling very guilty for acting like a fifteen-year-old who steals the best friend’s phone to text their crush as a I-was-doing-you-a-favour near prank.

Sunday morning Shiro woke up to Keith standing above him, as soon as he’d opened his eyes, and luckily, his remaining war instincts weren’t overpowering enough to make him hit the person looming above him as he slept. It wasn’t something that happened all that often, but, subconsciously, Shiro knew it was still there.

Relieved he hadn’t jumped his brother, Shiro tried to calm his racing heart as Keith spoke, looking as if it pained him to do so.

"I think you don’t understand the situation and why it made me mad.” He said, plainly and clearly, as if he was reciting something that Zarkon had said for situations of conflict. He probably was. “I don't like how Lance makes me feel. It's weird, it... it's just, weird." A pause. He seemed to be standing at the precipice of his own mind, watching words jumping up from the deep gap bellow, and fighting to get a hold of a few without falling off the cliff himself.

Keith finally continued, "I won't be cruel to him. You gave him false hope. And now _I_ will have to do something about it."

Do something about it…? Did that mean that Keith would be helping Lance?

Shiro frowned, feeling, not for the first time since yesterday, guilty, for the position he’d put his brother on.

But still, some small part of him hoped that it went well. That they worked out. Keith had never battered an eye at the sight of another human being, and what if he never did again?

Shiro didn’t thought that a person needed romantic love to be happy, but Keith needed devotion and care, and dating was the most commonplace way of getting it. Shiro would know; he remembered how having Matt next to him in war helped him cope with the bloodshed and the killing.

Shiro spoke carefully, trying not to let his reluctant satisfaction show.

"Will you... do the photoshoot?"

His question was met with silence, until Keith focused a seething look at Shiro.

"If it goes awry, I'm coming for you."

As soon as the words had left his mouth, Keith's glare melted into a confused look, and he stared at Shiro for a few seconds, as if he'd just realised something.

"What's in it for you? Why did you—"

"Joke," Shiro interrupted hastily. Perhaps a bit _too_ hasty, but thankfully Keith was as oblivious as a rock. "I wanted to see how you'd react. Haha."

Keith frowned, still looking confused, but seemed to accept it.

"Don't do it again," he warned lowly, and turned around, leaving the room and banging the door in his way out.

Shiro let out a relieved huff. It didn't feel good, but he supposed that he deserved the cold shoulder.

 

* * *

 

**Sunday • 9:14am**

 

_I’m free on the weekends, Saturday after 11am, and Monday after 7pm, Tuesday after 4pm, and Friday after 5pm. Also, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday there’s a vacant period from 2pm-3:30pm._

_But I guess that the late hour on Monday and Friday isn’t worth much because of the sun setting, right? Unless we’re going to a studio, I don’t know how you plan to do it._

Keith looked down at the texts he’d send, frowning. It didn’t look like the ones Shiro had sent under his name at all. Would Lance notice? Would he be accused of being a lying bastard who couldn’t even hold his own in a conversation, asking for someone to take over like a coward?

But it was just as well, Keith thought. He wouldn’t have known where to start if he had decided to emulate Shiro and Lance’s weird abbreviations and slangs.

Crossing his arms, he thought that he was who he was. If Lance still wanted him, that was what he was going to get.

Well, if Lance still wanted to photograph him, that is. Not… something else. That was who he was, and what he looked like. Take him or leave him. He was doing Lance a favour anyway, and it was all Shiro—and his stupid joke—‘s fault.

Less than a mile away from Keith’s dorm building B-4, a boy danced the cha-cha-cha as he spun around his living room, an amused best friend watching him from the couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kids, don't play Shiro at home. asshole move, honestly.
> 
> Finally got Hnk in here, did my love for him shine through a bit too brightly? lol, he's The Best Boi
> 
> Anyway, share your thoughts with me :) I promise I'm not (too) scary


	5. Backstage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Crawls back in shame* hello everybody  
> sorry this took me so long... it was ready for a long while but the editing... it was just this big 8k Thing, and while editing i could never edit all at once, or even read it all at once, and it didn't occur to me until, well, yesterday, that perhaps I should split. I just really wanted a 8k chapter, idk man
> 
> Hm, lots of things changed since a month and a half back, which was when I last posted! I'm back to school, I'm no longer a minor and... well, yeah, that's it, not much has changed actually.
> 
> Anyhow, have a nice day, and I hope you like it!

Lance and Keith had agreed that the photoshoot would be taking place on Tuesday, only two days after Keith had agreed to model.

Keith had thought it a bit weird, how immediatist Lance was choosing to be, so his mind had gone on a spiral to explain why, picturing the worst case scenarios whenever he let his consciousness slip away. If Keith allowed his thoughts to drift during class, or as he laid in bed waiting for sleep to overtake him, there the nagging conspiracies would be.

Perhaps Lance wanted to get rid of Keith as soon as possible. Just… halfheartedly photograph him and then throw his photos away, because he’d found a better model, a more good-looking one, who would do Lance's photographing skills justice. However, Lance was too polite to dismiss Keith after he’d explicitly asked for him to model, hence the facade photoshoot.

Or Lance might need that extra time. He had, in fact, _wanted_ Keith to model for him, but was perfectly aware that Keith’s own skill wouldn’t be enough to create acceptable photos. And every extra minute he managed to get would be necessary to edit and improve the pictures.

Keith wasn’t sure how he felt about being Photoshopped, something about it evoked a certain queasiness in him, but he couldn’t blame Lance for wanting to do it. It was his assignment after all, and it would also be his low grade if Keith fucked up. _When_ Keith fucked up.

Despite all that pondering and conspiring, two days really wasn’t a lot of time, and soon Tuesday rolled around, and with it, the hour of the Photoshoot.

As with most things in life that you _don’t_ want to arrive, time passed him by in a blur, almost flash-like, and Keith spared a hateful thought to Cronos as he walked toward the agreed meeting spot. He was a handful of minutes early—not to be safe, but because he physically couldn't keep himself from heading immediately there after the last class of the day and a quick shower.

Crossing campus, Keith saw a lot of people on the benches and sitting on the grass, but there were also students walking around in various attires, such as bathing suits with goggles and hair caps, gym clothes, and a remarkable one was wearing a dog onesie without looking the slightest bit self-conscious.

Keith shrugged, thinking “extracurriculars”.

He saw that the edge of the fountain was empty even before he got there. The clear water was splashing invitingly in the hot weather, glimmering under the shiny sun, and he thought that, with a stroke of luck, Lance had chosen a perfect day for the photoshoot, as hasty as the choice might've been.

“Lance?” He turned around and ran his gaze through all the people he was able to see, lounging in the surroundings. “Lance.”

His efforts, however, were to no avail. Lance was nowhere to be seen, and Keith’s quick text— _I’m at the fountain, where are you?_ —was met with technological silence.

Keith tapped his foot against the ground. Worried his bottom lip between his teeth. Glanced at the people around him again.

And Keith had already thought about his qualities and flaws, had even tried analysing them, and if there was one thing he learnt, one thing that he was, it was impatient.

So he liked to think that he’d waited at least fifteen minutes until he found something else to distract himself with—especially since he was a little bit early, and Lance would probably be arriving soon—but his impatience took precedence, and it couldn’t have been more than a measly five minutes of agitated stomping.

He opened his backpack and removed his notebook and a pencil, set on editing the poem he’d written late last night. He’d probably have a clearer mind now, without sleepiness as an added distraction, but he hoped the poem was as good as it seemed to have been under the dim light of his side lamp.

As he started to read, Keith noticed that he only remembered snippets of what he’d written, memories clouded by sleep. So really, it was like reading someone else's poem with the added weight of self-punishment, should it be a bad one.

He had the impression he'd written it with the figures of authority of his life in mind. Professor Turner, Coran, his parents. Adoptive ones and otherwise. But that was as far as his familiarity with the poem went.

Sleepy him was probably just sad about Turner’s hatred, he figured.

‘War Cry’ was the ominous title of the poem, and Keith frowned at the dramaticity. Started off bad, hadn't we? He frowned further as he read the following verses, slowly but surely deciphering his own chicken scrawl, and the alterations and little notes he’d made as he wrote.

 

_Oh, Mother!_   
_Do thou hear the war cries of thy moribund ~~children~~ sons?_   
_Listen attentive to our pained moaning?_   
_Howling thee, O benevolent Mother_   
_roaring thee our clamour_   
_Oh Mother! aid your children irrevocably_   
_mend us in meat and_   
_worship us in corpse._

_If the path is nothing of the sort_   
_But the dilacerated guts of an atheist bairn,_   
_Forgive us, sweet Mother, do abide innocence lost_   
_When it is through divine intervention_   
_within immoral and libertine context_   
_the making of our final stand._

_I carry not flowers_  
 _though don’t bring my carcass solely_ (only?)  
 _don’t carry even the insignificant weight of loving_  
 _anemic weakling demented_  
 _as we both know I’ve been._

~~_Mother, had I not been born, all_ ~~

_Naked, ~~lacking~~ leaked and lacking_   
_in War context, Mother_   
_none of us keeps preserved_   
_“Dignity! from where have thee come?”_   
_“Onus of being? thou art gone!”_   
_From top to bottom, I fly to the peak of the mountain, position myself in front of the world_   
_yet still there resides impenetrable_   
_faraway and barbarian_   
_our tiny delicate blockade._

_Mother, lie beyond_   
_Mother, never to retrieve what is gone_   
_the bayonet that loved me last attests, Ma_   
_to what is ~~g~~ none and dead and infested and rot._

_Ma! you are all I have left, Ma_  
 _stare deep into your child that kills you that ails you_  
 _Ma, I shan’t apologize_  
 _Ma, come closer_  
 _Ma, in this life naught I carry but the profound ingrained hurt pustulent_ ( ?) _incandescent in blood_  
 _and with it I’m buried it is the only god ~~I believe in~~ I profess to_  
 _and they haul me further and further away from you._

  


Keith was tapping the pencil against his mouth when a voice startled him.

“Awn, you writing me a poem?” someone whispered in Keith’s ear, breath hot on the nape of his neck. “How _sweet_.”

Keith's body, stiffened and poised like a cobra, tense from the frustration of his writing—honestly, what was it with the archaic forms? Did he fancy himself Shakespeare?—reacted instinctively. His elbow snapped back with strength and momentum, but the person behind him managed to dodge.

“Ouch, what the fuck, Keith?”

Recognising Lance’s voice, now that he wasn’t whispering, Keith turned around with a concerned frown. Once he saw that Lance was unharmed, Keith barked, anger fueled by adrenaline, “Why the fuck did you scare me?!”

Lance was half sprawled half fallen, which explained how he avoided Keith's move. He grumbled sullenly.

“You were looking all… _mister writer_.” He spat it like a curse word. “I wanted to laugh at you doing something undignified for once. Like, shrieking.”

Keith’s eyebrows shot up, and, as the adrenaline levels settled, he had the presence of mind to be embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” he said slowly, trying to convey that he meant it. “It was a joke and I overreacted.”

Lance frowned and then laughed a little.

“Chill, man. It was a reflex, you can’t apologize for a reflex. Anyhow, it was my bad.”

Keith wasn’t sure if “my bad” counted as an apology, so he didn’t say anything in response.

A body plopped down beside his carelessly, its weight like a long-limbed bag of potatoes. Lance settled next to him, both their backs against the stone edge of the fountain.

“Whatcha writing? And please don’t punch me. It's an innocent question, scout’s honour.”

Noticing Lance's wriggling and stretching to read his poem, Keith forcibly snapped his notebook closed.

At Lance's curious look, he dismissed with a careful, “It's uh, private.”

Keith really wasn’t one to show his poems to anyone, but he’d been sharing them for years, with Coran and the rest of the students in the writing class. He was, by now, more than used to it. He could recite anything, from Ginsberg's long lines (though he usually lost his breath halfway through), to Romantic sonnets, and even some of his own, without batting an eye or blushing.

But somehow, it seemed mandatory that Lance wasn’t allowed to read a poem Keith disliked. As if Keith felt the need to show only his best, to look nice—he'd even made an effort on the mirror before coming—and to be the most confident, interesting self he could be.

Lance’s eyebrows furrowed, but he looked like he’d been expecting it.

“Uuukay then.” He shrugged and, unaffected, changed the subject. “Well, sorry it took me so long, I just saw your text. I was looking for your photoshoot outfits, and lemme tell you, the Fashion Storage? Grade A mess.”

Keith had never been to the Fashion Storage, but he took Lance’s word for it. If all the clothes he saw passing through campus in the hands of Fashion Design students were all kept in one place… Keith couldn’t even begin to comprehend the extent of the mess. Kind of how the human mind was unable to grasp the size of the Universe, but with clothing rather than planets and solar systems.

Keith registered another part of Lance’s speech, and looked down at his own graphic t-shirt and baggy cargo shorts.

“Why did you pick up clothes? What’s wrong with mine?”

Lance stared at him incredulously, as if it were obvious. A few seconds passed, and neither of them said anything.

Lance sighed.

“Okay, do you _really_ want me to? Like, a list? Dissertation? You look like an essay kind of guy.”

Keith blanched, feeling a bit self-conscious. He resisted the temptation to put splayed hands over his shorts to partially hide them.

“That’s- that’s rude, Lance.”

“You literally asked for it!” Lance folded his arms, and, since they were sitting side by side, his forearms were nearly brushing Keith’s chest. “I don’t go around telling people that their clothes look like a geek pre-teen merged with a middle-aged… virgin _gay_ man, but you literally asked for my opinion.”

The left corner of Keith’s upper lip flexed as a muscle response, trying to form a full-fledged sneer. Keith pushed the urge—and the lip—down.

“Stop using ‘literally’ so offhandedly. It’s not even the meaning of the word. That’s semantic bleaching.”

Lance’s eyes widened.

“‘Offhandedly’?” Lance shrieked. “Oh I’m sorry Mr. English Authority.” Keith snorted at the mockery. “I didn’t realise that the Grammar Police had arrived.”

Keith crossed his arms over his chest, and looked down to try and conjure up an insult good enough to beat Lance's.

“At least English is my actual course, you… designer wannabe.”

Keith smirked confidently, satisfied with his comeback, but Lance seemed to have diverging opinions regarding the quality of Keith's jab.

Lance's offended face had smoothed out into full inexpressiveness, and he stared at Keith long enough to make him uncomfortable. Then, like wind blowing over the peaceful surface of a pond, snickers started to pour forth uncontrollably.

“Oh my god, you’re such… a fucking dork. Let’s just… start the photoshoot, it’s late already.”

And late it was, nearing 4:30pm, and start the photoshoot they did, moving from the fountain to the place Lance had envisioned for the first set  of photos.

Lance, with Keith's assistance, set up some sort of portable changing booth. It had a structure that resembled that of a sleeping tent, one of those you use while camping. Keith entered it with a frown, Lance pushing his shoulders with a moderate amount of strength and a weirdly reassuring “c'mon now, it won't be long”.

Once inside the booth’s sailcloth confines, Keith turned around, mouth open to ask what the fuck Lance wanted, when he got instead a mouthful of tissue.

“Change,” Lance ordered, and motioned for Keith to snap the booth zipper closed.

Encased in relative darkness, the tent’s red fabric cast a subdued crimson glow over Keith and the clothing in his hands. Keith made quick work of his own outfit, removing his shirt and picking up the one Lance had given him. It was a light coloured and flower patterned button-down shirt, though the red glow of the changing booth altered the colours somewhat. The pants, on the other hand, were washed out jeans, kind of loose and with a weird belt, made of the same denim material as the pants. It went down to mid ankle, and the crotch area was much looser than Keith was used to with trousers.

“I think you got the wrong number,” he said, stepping out of the booth. Sunlight hit his eyes a bit painfully, so it took him a second to be able to open them properly to stare at Lance.

Lance, who was staring at him.

“No, I didn't.” His eyes were still trained on Keith's body, flickering up and down with a contemplative frown. “And I wasn't sure the soft look would suit ya, but guess it did, emo boy.”

Keith opened his mouth to bark something back, but Lance was already turning his back on him and squatting in front of one of the two suitcases he'd brought.

“I'll need you to sit tight and pretty so that I can fix you up.”

Lance gestured vaguely towards his left, still with his back turned, and looking through his suitcase. Keith assumed that he meant the edge of the fountain, the only place he could sit on without ruining the pants with dirt.

A few seconds later Lance stood up and marched towards Keith purposefully, square briefcase in hands like a surgeon's kit, and face set on a grimace.

“I'm not very good at this,” he said, sitting next to Keith, “but I've seen some YouTube tutorials, and I'm sure it’ll be fine.”

He sounded confident enough, but Keith was still a bit skeptical.

“What if you drop something or it smudges? Won't it stain the clothes?”

Lance's mouth pulled in an arrogant sneer, opening to bite back a response. However, no sound came off, and Lance's eyes widened.

“That's… a good suggestion, actually. I should've done this before you changed clothes.” He stared hard at his own lap for a few seconds, and then shrugged. It seemed to be something he did a lot. “Guess it's too late now. I better not be dropping things or smudging, I guess.”

Keith's hair got combed and styled into a tidy, momma's boy _thing,_ and Lance had nearly managed to add flower hair clips into the mix when Keith declared that enough was enough.

Next came makeup, and Keith didn't fail to notice how Lance's hands were shaking slightly as he picked up something that looked like a medieval torture device. “That's supposed to go on your eye.”

Suffice to say, his voice, even more shaky than his hands, was not very reassuring, and he fit the device around Keith's eye socket breathing in, bracing for it.

Surprisingly, though, they got through the torture device without major injuries; flawless execution except for an instance Lance pinched Keith's upper eyelid.

After that, Lance got a bit more confident with his makeup skills.

“Why do I need mascara?” Keith asked for what seemed like the tenth time, as Lance struggled to put the product on his eyelashes without painting his whole eyelid black.

“Shut up, you can't be moving,” Lance reprimanded. “And you need mascara because I'll photograph your eyes, at some point. And though they're already kinda big, this accentuates it.”

They got to skin and foundation, and it was all going fine—Lance at least seemed to be in his element, tending to someone's skin—when he breathed out a soft _'oh no’._

“What is it?” Keith asked, pulling his face back from Lance's grasp on instinct.

Lance had already applied “foundation”, which had always sounded to Keith like an euphemism for face cement, and had been applying face powder. Keith should've known it was unlikely that the whole process would go down that smoothly.

“Apparently… the clothes before makeup is not the only thing we did out of order.” Lance splayed his hands on Keith's cheeks, rubbing his thumbs over Keith's lashes. It was such an oddly pleasant sensation that he had to force himself not to close his eyes to bask in it. “I guess that the skin part was supposed to come first too.” In response to Keith's inquisitive look, he clarified, “The mascara wasn't fully dry, so the powder sort of… caked it.”

_“Caked_ it?”

Lance nodded, lips pursed.

Keith inhaled to keep himself from doing anything rash. Like calling Lance a walking disaster, or ripping his own lashes off. He might not have been top of the class in biology back in highschool, but he knew he needed those to close his eyes.

“Should I… wash my face?” he asked diplomatically.

Lance’s face was so full of horror Keith might as well have actually suggested full lashes removal.

“No!” he nearly yelled. “I-I mean, no. The skin part is so nice, and I'm not sure I'll be able to do it again.”

The slight weakness to his voice subdued some of Keith's annoyance.

After a few seconds of staring at Lance’s miserable face, he relented with a sigh.

“Okay. What do you suggest?”

He pressed his lips together.

“I might be able to get it out. I just need… a piece of fabric and some water.”

Keith looked pointedly at the abundance of water right by their side. Face turned to the fountain, he blinked a few times noticing a certain difference.

The upper lashes on lower lashes impact was hard, like his eyelashes had crystallized. Keith thought that, if the mascara weren't dry before, when Lance was applying the face powder, it sure was right now. Hard as iron, it felt like.

Lance was riffling through the small metal briefcase, an interesting square little thing with compartments that expanded out of the case's space with tiny drawers, putting the makeup products in display. It looked like something a professional makeup artist might own, but Lance certainly wasn't one, and neither did he seem to be capable of finding some tissues to clean Keith's lashes.

Walking disaster, Keith though again.

“Where is it, where is it…” Lance whispered to himself. His back was partially turned to Keith.

“Isn't that thing yours? Shouldn't you be able to find your stuff?”

“It's not mine. It's from a friend of mine, who was, actually, the one who would be doing your makeup.” He paused, and his rifling got a bit more aggressive, items clicking together a bit too strong for it to be safe on the delicate products. “But she bailed on me.”

Before Keith could respond—and thankfully, since he wasn't sure what he was supposed to say—Lance turned around, sighing.

“I guess she's both untrustworthy and a dirty fucker. I didn't find any wet tissues or handkerchiefs, and I didn't bring any either.”

“Well.”

Keith frowned, thinking.

“Will we just do it like this, then?”

Lance stared at him wide eyed and horrified.

“No! We don't have time to go looking for some, though. We only have a while until the sun starts to set, and that's my favourite hour to photograph, but it doesn't last long.”

“So what to we..?” Lance pushed his shoulders back and slipped one arm off its jacket sleeve, then the other. “Oh.”

“Scoot over.”

Keith only had a few seconds to look at Lance's white shirt and its long blue sleeves, while Lance was dipping the bottom of his jacket on the fountain water.

He moved closer, kneeling on the stone edge right in front of Keith, incredibly close. He was much taller, in this position, as opposed to the smaller advantage when they were both standing. This up close Keith could count his freckles, and observe the slight dent just beneath his nose, his Cupid's bow dimple.

When Lance's index finger tapped his lids softly, silently telling him to close his eyes, Keith thanked the gods. If Lance hadn't pulled him out of his fascination, he might’ve traced the peculiar contours of Lance's face with the tip of his own finger, or perhaps something even more appalling.

Keith had only ever kissed thrice. The first, a girl from his writing class, and he thought it wasn't all that special. If anything, it felt a bit uncomfortable to bump noses and feel someone's damp breath on your face. The second, also a writing class person, but a boy, had happened during a game of spin the bottle. They weren't wild teenagers by any means, Keith least of all, but some of them were a bit on the wilder side, and managed to get Keith to participate on a game after writing class was through—and that day, Keith's mother was running a bit late. So he'd figured there was no harm in joining in once, since none of his classmates was mean, and Keith was even a bit curious.

The second time had definitely been better than the first one, but be it because Keith was introduced to someone else’s tongue, because it was a boy, or because he liked the person in question—a funny, outspoken boy named Tommy—more than he'd liked timid Willow, he wasn't sure.

And the third had been with Tommy too, the day before said boy was supposed to move schools, to one on the farthest parts of town.

The spin the bottle kiss had happened over a month prior, but they had been tentative about interactions afterwards. Keith had always been kind of shy, so it was no surprise, but even charismatic Tommy seemed a bit awkward when it came to Keith.

Still, they’d started to talk more and text more, about writing and art and random things happening with their families and friends. Tommy was nice, and his smile was so bright it scared Keith sometimes, but he started to see his crossed eyes with a slight “fondness”, and his constantly fidgeting fingers with “endearment”. Or so Zarkon called it, called _him_ —fond and endeared—when Keith described how he felt about one of his classmates, and the only person aside from Shiro whom he might call a friend.

Still, one month later Keith had settled into the comfortable routine of having someone to talk to, when Tommy sent a series of texts that sounded vaguely sorrowful and vaguely apologetic. And Keith had said “you don't owe me anything”, repeatedly, both to himself and to Tommy, and they parted ways a week later with a kiss, worse than Willow's, and worse than their first one. Despite how half a dozen people had been cheering and applauding their moment during the spin the bottle game, it had still been acres better.

Because during their parting, Keith had been closed off and angry, focusing on how disgustingly salty Tommy's snot tasted on his mouth, rather on how he'd miss him. And Tommy had been crying, and Keith had been certain, staring up at the ceiling of his bedroom that night, that, given a few months, perhaps even just a few weeks, Keith would've been gone enough that he would've made a fool of himself like Tommy had, crying at the back of the gymnasium when _he_ had been the cause that it all had taken a turn for worse. Not Keith. Keith hadn't done anything, right?

He squinted up at the ceiling. It hadn't been his fault. Had it?

Regardless, that had happened two years ago, and Keith had been averse to the very idea of kissing ever since, even during his highschool prom, with baptized punch in his stomach, and a pretty girl clutching at his arm and tilting her head back in a way he remembered all too well.

So why was he, in his University campus sitting on the edge of a Bacchus fountain, pressing his lips tightly together to keep from pursing them? In what, preparation?

And what for?

Lance wiped Keith’s lashes dutifully with the sleeve of his jacket. Granted, it wasn't the softest of materials, but the tenderness of the act nearly made that a matter of no consequence. It wasn't very comfortable, someone poking that close to one's eyes, but Lance was careful, and most of the tension on Keith's shoulders was due to another cause entirely.

After Keith's lashes were properly cleaned, Lance applied, in the correct order this time, a retouch to the skin area around the eyes, and some mascara when all the rest was done and over with. He even refused to apply the mascara before the lipstick, despite the lips and lashes being fully unconnected, as if he'd been scared beyond repair by powdered mascara.

“It's not lipstick,” Lance protested, voice sounding a bit off.

“Feels like lipstick to me.” Since the lipstick tube was pressing against his lips, Keith's words sounded more like _feelielipsticome._

It had occurred to him that, given a mirror, he could apply the lipstick onto himself just fine, but right at that moment, Lance had adjusted himself on his knees by his side, grabbed Keith's chin between his thumb and forefinger, and started to apply the makeup to his lips. And the tingling sensation it caused was certainly scary, but also something Keith couldn't give up on now that his brain had officially turned into mush.

“It's not lipstick,” Lance repeated. “It's Chapstick, a lip balm. I can't have your chapped lips take the attention away from my crazy photographing skills.”

Keith waited until Lance was done to speak, able to enounce clearly once again.

“So far you've been all talk and no action. Show me some o’those skills, before the sun sets. Or I might just think you're lying.”

Lance puffed up like a pidgeon’s haughty chest, or a pufferfish. It had been precisely Keith's intent, so he fought back a smirk as Lance opened his mouth to spit something back.

“I'll have you _know_ —”

“Look at the sky,” Keith interrupted quickly.

Lance's mouth was still wide open as his jaw twitched and curiosity got the best of him. Snapping his mouth shut, he turned his head up to the sky, elegant tendons apparent through the thin skin of his neck, and Keith looked down at the weird denim belt of his own pants, in an attempt to distract himself from the sudden dryness of his throat.

When Lance didn't continue to curse at him, Keith knew that he had won. The sky had the slightest orange hue taking over its light-blue peacefulness, and both boys knew that it couldn't be long now before the sky got fully sunset colourful, and, right after, night-time dark.

Keith stopped fiddling with his belt when he heard the telltale sound of plastic on plastic, things snapping shut, and lids being closed.

When he looked at Lance, the makeup case was closed and he was standing up.

“Follow me,” he said, and turned around.

Throwing the case—very—carelessly on the floor next to Keith's clothes (and he didn't fail to notice that Lance had brought more garments from the Fashion storage, and not only the outfit Keith was wearing at the moment), Lance picked up his camera and a tripod, walking toward a large expanse of grass with a few interspersed trees. He only checked that Keith was following him with a quick look over his shoulder.

Keith didn't know if it were the angle, the slightly golden sunlight, or the circumstances, but the sight made his breath catch in his throat, and his feet trip over themselves in a perfectly obstacle-less field.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A friend of mine once said that she likes my poetry because it's simple and not... you know, "too much" or conceited, or something like that.
> 
> Me: proceeds to make Keith write the most conceited poem in the history of ever, which isn't even the style he usually has in my mind
> 
> Sorry, Moth.
> 
> Well, guys, I hope you liked it! Again, sorry for the delay, and the next one is probably going to be posted shortly since it's pretty much ready atm.
> 
> Share your thoughts!


	6. Action

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flirting comes in odd shapes and sizes.

Two minutes after the beginning of the photoshoot, Keith's attempts at not dirtying the clothes were proved pointless, because many of the poses consisted of close up contact with the ground, be it kneeling, sitting, or laying down. The too-short jeans, reaching down to his calf—Lance had assured him that yes, they were his size, but Keith still found it hard to believe—were soon covered in mud and grass.

“Can I get one of you facing… that way?” Lance pointed toward the hills on Keith's left side, tone agreeable and a friendly smile on his face.

“Uh. Yeah, sure,” Keith chuckled a bit, nervous, but did as instructed.

“Great, perfect.”  _ snap. snap. snap. _

And that was just it, wasn't it? Lance was a nice person, Keith knew, but he was just being so…

“Bear with me,” Lance pleaded with a smile in his voice. “Yeah, and then you look back this way. Stretch your neck a bit so that it accentuates your angles… that's it.”

…  _ nice. _ And attentive. And just generally a lot of fun to be with, and Keith didn't know what to make of that, because this photoshoot wasn't supposed to be fun. He had agreed to it because the idea of upsetting Lance made him sick in the stomach, and Shiro had basically forced him to do it, anyway.

Just the thought of Shiro made him frown. His brother's behaviour puzzled him. Intrigued him. He wasn't as angry right now, but something about it felt familiar.

Like Shiro had done it before.

Was that it? Had Shiro meddled with his life in the past, and Keith had just brushed it off? Would he be able to remember it?

And why hadn't he noticed it before, if it were a pattern? Was it—

_ Snap. Snap. Snapsnapsnap. _

Keith blinked a few times, and focused back on the task at hand. He forced his eyes to drift, from the random point he had stared at fixedly during posing, back to Lance.

Said boy was focused on his camera's panel, thumbing the buttons to check the photos he'd taken.

“I can't  _ believe _ that you make the brooding look work. It would be just like you to be the most eccentric modeling prodigy in the history of ever.”

Keith frowned.

“What're you talking about?”

“Look at this,” Lance shoved the camera in Keith's hands. “Just  _ look at this.” _

The Keith in Keith's hands was undoubtedly a Keith. Same nose, same mouth, same pale complexion, same large, blue grey-ish eyes in their monolid sockets. But the sunset light cast golden shades over his black hair, accentuating its dark colour and making it richer, like a jewel made of onyx on gold.

Lance's neck advice had payed off, for Keith's neck stretched in long lines on the small display of the camera. It wasn't as mesmerising as Lance's own, an endless expanse of brown elegance, but Keith figured his didn't look so bad.

And his grimace, which Keith supposed was what Lance meant, made the picture interesting. Because Keith looked more delicate than ever, under the sunset, with a flower patterned shirt, and discreet makeup on. His lashes indeed looked bigger, heightened by mascara—no trace of face powder in them, thank God—and his lips looked smoother than their usual cracked-ground-of-the-Saara state, so he was willing to give Lance some credit.

And perhaps, though the grimace had been entirely accidental, give himself some credit too. Because the contrast of his frown with the delicate beauty Lance had created in him made for an interesting juxtaposition.

Lance snatched back his camera delicately. That made Keith think about the makeup case, and conclude, with certainty, that there was no way it was Lance's. Not only because he didn't know how to use it, but due to his total indifference to its conservation state. Though that last one was probably because of his fallout with the case owner.

_ “Now _ will you admit that I'm awesome?”

Keith didn't know much about photography, but the picture he'd examined had looked beautiful, and not only because of Keith. The angles, and the use of the light—the way it shone on certain parts of him didn't seem accidental, but a consequence of Lance positioning him just so—stroke Keith as the work of someone who knew his way around a camera.

However, he wasn't about to give Lance the satisfaction of admitting that.

“I guess so. But you said it yourself,” Keith smirked and tilted his head left. “It was probably more my innate model skills than you just standing there and clicking that button.”

Lance brought his camera up to his face, pressing his eye to the viewfinder and tapping his index finger against said button.

Lance dragged the camera away from his face and looked at the photo he'd just taken, smiling as well.

“Is that so? I’m that useless?”

He looked up from the camera, glinting eyes taunting Keith.

That had to be flirting, Keith thought, his chest constricting nearly painfully. They had to be flirting right now. Not even he could get signals so mixed up, when it seemed to blatantly obvious.

Though he felt close to fainting, some careless devil inside him continued the poke and incentivize Keith's comebacks, no care for Keith's cardiac health whatsoever.

Just like in the horror movies. Demon parasites constantly endangering weak host bodies—and weaker host hearts.

“My little cousin could probably do it,” Keith teased, eyes narrowing and smirk still on. “She's _ twelve.” _

_ Snap. Snap. Snap. _

Keith's confident facade crumbled a bit, surprise and unease unsettling his expression into something full of uncertainty.

Lance took the camera off his face and repeated the motion of examining the photos. From the gleam in his eyes when he looked up at Keith, he seemed to have liked what he saw.

“You're lucky you're pretty, cocky boy.”

 

* * *

 

“And then your left hand, just bring it maybe to, your ankle? Yeah. Go. And you can turn your head to me..? Yea, perfect. That's it.”

_ Snap. Snap. Snap. _

 

* * *

 

“Do you wanna try crossing your legs?”

“How?”

“Like maybe…”

Lance seems to realise that Keith won't get it right on his own, and sits on the ground alongside his model, demonstrating what he meant. 

Crossing his legs in the way Lance had, Keith mimics the pose to the best of his ability, though it sits a bit differently in his body, not composed of eighty percent leg, like Lance's was.

“Like this?”

Lance examined Keith's attempt at posing with a professional, serious stare.

“Yeah, then perhaps leaning... Yeah, like that.”

Following that comment, there was too long a series of  _ snap _ ’s to transcript in an acceptable manner.

 

* * *

 

By the end of the session, Lance had made Keith change twice, once into a dark button-down (this time long sleeved) and tight-fitting grey slacks; and the other time, into a short Avenged Sevenfold tank top. It was so short, in fact, that Keith had asked if it belonged to a child, or if it had shrunk in the dry-cleaner.

“It's a crop top, you heathen!” Lance gasped.

“And you found this… crop top, in the storage? A design student sewed  _ this _ for their assignment?”

“I don't see why they wouldn't!” Lance protested. 

It so happened that Lance hadn't, in fact, picked that up from the storage. He told Keith that he'd borrowed it from a friend, thinking that it would look nice on Keith, and, after he'd found pants that matched the shirt (if it could even be called that, the bloody miniature), it had seemed like divine intervention.

After the crop top session, Keith felt like his bones had gone through the meat grinder time and time again for a month, when it couldn't have been more than forty minutes of posing. Lance had taken full advantage of all stages of sunlight during that period, from the nearly fully blue sky, to the colourful canvas of blues, oranges and pinks, to the dark blue of early night. They'd also made use of trees, the fountain, the grass, Altea’s benches and the pretty Castle outer walls, varying in terms of scenario and posing.

Lance had pressed the camera button at the very least five hundred times throughout the afternoon, and, had the flash been on, Keith would certainly have gotten his retinas burnt. But it was over, he thought, sighing. He scratched at the patch of skin below his exposed bellybutton and rolled his shoulders, relieved.

It was over.

However, as Keith approached the red changing booth, pulling on the sailcloth to make the unzipping process easier, Lance called out:

“Hey! Hey, Keith!” He was next to a tree picking up the equipment, but Keith had dashed away as soon as Lance had said 'I guess this is it, then'. “Would you be willing to shoot one more set?!”

Keith froze. He couldn't pretend not hearing  it, could he? No, that was cowardly. And he  _ had _ liked doing it, but all he wanted at the moment was to get back to his dorm and take a long, relaxing shower, and a longer, and hopefully even more relaxing nap.

“I don't know, Lance…” he dragged, tone weary.

Lance had finished with the equipment and walked closer. When he spoke, he wasn't nearly screaming like he'd been before, voice softer and somewhat more intimate.

“It'll be the last one, I swear. We only got one outfit left, and I was thinking about shooting at the Den.”

Keith bit his lip. He'd turned to face Lance, but it was dark enough that he couldn't see his features clearly, apart by a few meters as they were.

“C’mooon,” Lance whined. “I'll… I'll pay for your coffee!”

Keith bit his lip, already feeling his resolve crumbling.

He sighed.

“You'll pay for a pastry too. And one of the expensive ones.”

_ “Yaaay!” _ Lance cheered. “Thank you so so much, I promise I won’t—”

“I'm talking Arabian leaf kind of thing. The elite of coffee house desserts, you better ready your pocket bec—”

“I love you, I love you, I love you!”

Keith stilled with a sharp inhale. Lance proceeded unfettered.

“This is wonderful, thank you so much, Keith!” 

Lance continued to organise his things and zip up his suitcases, with the assistance of his phone's lantern and all the while exaggeratedly naming Keith's accomplishments and outstanding kindness.

After a few seconds of frozen stupor, Keith snapped out of it, snapped the changing booth closed, and nearly succumbed to the temptation to snap his own neck for a quick, painless death.

_ I love you,  _ Lance had said. Keith's stomach was turning somersaults inside his belly.

Lance was saying random sappy things that had a vague sense of rhyming, probably his idea of an improvised poem, just outside of Keith's bubble of nervousness. Keith pressed the side of his closed fist against his mouth, overwhelmed, and tried to take his clothes off one handed, failing miserably.

He remembered what else was missing.

“Lance,” he called, a bit faint.  _ And Ai-Iai,  _ Lance was singing goofily, apparently having come to the same conclusion as Keith regarding his poet skills, _ will always love—  _ “LANCE! The clothes, goddamn it.”

It got Lance to stop bellowing his horrible rendition of a classic for long enough to tap the booth, indicating that it was okay for Keith to open it. Once Keith had extended a hand out to be handed the garments, Lance pressed a bundle of fabric into his hand while also grabbing his wrist forcibly. 

Keith prepared to pull his hand back and into safety, clothes in his grasp, but a lighter touch stopped all of his higher brain function.

The soft tip of a finger with the slightest trace of a nail brushed the base of Keith's ring finger.

“I adore you so much right now I could put a wedding band, right here.”

_ What the fuck,  _ Keith thought.

“But seriously now. Thank you for helping me with this. Really. I mean, this is one of the those classes that… define a person's academic career, you know? And I think I might do okay. Because of you.”

Lance's finger left Keith's hand, and Keith noticed that the only moment his hand had been forced to stay put was right after Lance had given him the clothes. After that, it was as if a magnet was attached to the base of Keith's ring finger, and Lance's hand, and once those separated, Keith's hand dropped like a limp body. He pulled it back, clothes thankfully still clutched in his hand—albeit with more force than was probably necessary—and whole body tingling. His hand; his neck where Lance had adjusted the position of his head; his lips with the ghost touch of chapstick; his left thigh that got patted in encouragement; the length of his shoulders contracting and relaxing with the memory of Lance putting a hand around them, waving extravagantly to indicate the graffitied wall of the Castle of Lions, while explaining why it was beautiful, and why Keith would look gorgeous leaning against it.

Keith tugged the crop top off his body, and wriggled out of his edgy dark pants.

He felt awkward and unsettled.

Apparently no amount of fun could mask the fact that doing this had been a mistake.

* * *

 

The Lion's Den was surprisingly less crowded that Tuesday night, most likely because many students were currently in class. The barista was a purple haired girl whom Keith didn't know by name, but recognised the face of, and had seen walking around the Castle a few times.

Lance collapsed on a chair, plopping face down on the table.

“I'm so tired I could  _ dieee,”  _ he groaned. His hair looked like melted chocolate in the cozy half-light of the coffee shop. It was messy, like he'd ran his hands through it, and indeed he had, more and more as the sun crept closer to the edge of the horizon and the darkness overtook a previously bright sky.

He'd probably been scared that they wouldn't have enough time to take all the photos he wanted.

“That makes two of us,” Keith said, fiddling with the sleeve of his sweater.

His fourth and last outfit was an embroidered sweater and jeans. There wasn't anything very special about the pants, aside from their tight fit while simultaneously being very comfortable, but the sweater seemed like too wonderful an attire to be wore by a person such as Keith.

At first, as Keith left the changing booth and helped Lance dismantle the tent-like cabin, he couldn't really make out how the sweater looked like. However, he knew it was comfy and that something rough like tulle sprouted at the end of the sleeves and at the hem of the sweater, only a couple inches long. 

After they finished getting all of Lance's things organised, Lance grabbed one of the suitcases and Keith offered to drag the other to the Lion's Den, thinking that it must not have been easy to drag both on his way here, and Keith had two capable hands and feet, and a willingness to help.

Walking toward the coffee shop, they left the less illuminated part of campus (the field grounds, which would probably have their street lamps turned on in a while) to the main areas, with an abundance of light, and plenty of opportunities for Keith to examine his outfit.

It so happened that his sweater was burgundy coloured and embroidered very very carefully. When questioned, Lance said that it had probably been handmade, because the Design teachers allowed nothing less of their assignments. And in the deep maroon/blood-red fabric, flowers and leaves and branches spread in delicate flourishes of life, so well crafted that Keith would daresay it looked as though it were real, if not for its prettiness. It looked so pretty, in fact, that real life, wild nature could never hope to compare.

And below the hem and sleeves, it was indeed tulle, but with small bugs and insects made of stones and pearls and other jewelry trinkets Keith couldn't even begin to name. They were all embroidered, Keith noticed, and in a beautiful display of needlework, no less. He felt like a sham, wearing it, in its beauty and delicateness and ethereality. Keith was none of that. 

Fashion could not be one of the seven arts, but it was sculpture, architecture, painting and performance, all at once. Keith looked down at himself, at the hands framed by otherworldly tulle, seeing the calluses from using gym equipment without gym gloves, as his mom had always advised that he'd do, and felt like a sham for being Lance's choice of model when he could, right in that moment, as they crossed the University campus, pinpoint dozens of flaws within him what would make him unworthy of that sweater, let alone of Lance's attention.

In the midst of his inner monologue, Keith hadn't noticed that Lance had picked himself up and lifted his head from the surface of the table. 

“What you looking at?!” Keith asked, but it was less of a bark than it was a self-conscious inquiry.

He resisted the impulse to smooth over his hair when Lance stretched his arm across the table and tapped Keith's forehead lightly.

“Your frown. It's the same one you had on when I took a few of the photos. You're distracted now too.”

Keith's frown didn't smooth out. If anything, he was more confused after the explanation.

“Well, yes I am?” It was more of a question than a statement. “We aren't doing anything? And posing can be boring sometimes, standing still for a long time.”

It wasn't really it. Lance liked to incentivize Keith’s freedom of expression and movement, instead of asking him to pose all the time. He'd give guidelines, then Keith would have freedom to move and change in ways he thought would look good, as long as he moved slowly enough that the camera would be able to get a few nice shots. And that's why Lance took so many, because he would hunt the nice ones in the middle of bug-eyed and fish-faced atrocities.

“Well, you let your mind drift when you're unfocused; it's okay, I do it too. But… you looked angry, those two times. Did you not…” Lance cut himself off, running his tongue through his front teeth in a way that left a protuberance on the skin above his upper lip. “Did you not like it? Or, didn't you want to do it?”

“Oh.” Keith didn't know what to say.  _ “Oh. _ That. Uh…”

“You didn't have to come if you didn't want to,” Lance interrupted, voice stronger than it had been seconds prior. “I'd be okay. Like you said, there are hundreds of students, you didn't have to come just to… to please me, or appease me, or something. I can find someone to pose, and I could've paid for someone to do it, or, or for you to do it!” Lance snapped his fingers and smiled triumphantly, like he'd just had an 'Eureka’ moment. “Yes, I can pay you.”

“Lance, I don't need you to—”

“We still have a set of pics to take, and I can pay you so at least this part onward won't feel like… one of those bad obligations slash favours.” Lance took a pause on his hurried speaking pace, but not long enough for Keith to butt in. “How much do you want? It's been like an hour, and you've done… just _ beautifully _ , so I—”

Keith interrupted him with a firm hand, right on top of Lance's on the tabletop.  _ “Lance.” _

The single word and gesture were enough to stop Lance in his tracks. Keith felt bad for shutting him up, Lance had a right to talk about whatever he chose, even if he ranted his way through it, but he was getting the wrong picture here.

“I don't want your money.” Keith pressed the tip of his fingers against the back of Lance's hands. At least a bug or two from the tulle under-sleeve must have been pinching Lance's fingers uncomfortably, but Keith had a point to get across, Lance's physical comfort be damned. “I wasn't angry. I let… my mind drift away sometimes, and it goes to odd places, and I end up… thinking too hard, and I frown in… consideration, I guess? Or—or deep thought. But I wasn't angry.” One look at Lance's face told Keith that he had his full attention, all there in the wide eyes, furrowed brow, and pressed lips. “Well, if anything, certainly not angry at you.”

Keith continued, softer.

“I liked doing this photoshoot. Don’t get me wrong, I'm fucking exhausted, but. I liked it.”

Lance's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, and Keith tracked the movement with his eyes.

“I guess so…” He pulled his hand from under Keith's carefully, clearing his throat. “In that case,, I'll go get us coffees, so that I can start with the photos. How do you like yours?”

“Black.”

“Figures.”

Keith didn't have time to ask what he meant by that, because Lance was standing up and stepping away from the table.

After Lance got back, two foam cups in a cup holder in one hand, and the other occupied by a delicious looking dessert—Keith hadn't been serious about Lance buying him a pastry, but he did want one now that he saw it—they got down to business.

Keith posed with the cup in his hand, looking left, and then drawing it to his lips. At Lance's request, he “smiled with his eyes” over the rim of the cup, whatever that meant, and even got an accidental photo taken after Lance had asked for a break. Lance had told Keith to relax for a moment, since he would be drinking his own coffee so that it wouldn't cool down. Keith had decided to use the free moment to admire the bugs on his sleeves, which he still hadn't had the time to examine closely—when he heard the telltale  _ snap snap snap _ of Lance's camera.

“You're smiling,” Lance said after checking the photos on the camera display. His face split in a huge grin too. “It's _ adorable.” _

Keith felt his face hurting a bit with the sudden hotness in his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose.

“Shut up,” he grumbled, embarrassed. “I've smiled before.”

Lance shook his head, frighteningly big grin still on.

“Nope,” he popped the word exaggeratedly. “You've  _ smirked.  _ Genuine smile? That's a first.”

After they'd both finished their drinks, and Lance's need for photos seemed somewhat appeased, Lance started to scroll through the camera and deleted the pictures that were blurry and ugly. Keith took the opportunity to eat his pastry. It was, indeed, a Baklava, just like he'd jokingly requested, and a delicious one at that. It was crunchy and tasty, with a delicious nut filling and warm, rich syrup.

“Holy fuck,” he groaned, mouth full. “Lance, you gotta tr—”

Keith looked up to find Lance already staring at him, camera in hand.

_ Snap. Snap. _

“You were saying?” he replied smugly.

Keith decided that Lance didn't deserve to be offered dessert after all.

 

* * *

 

Keith decided to help Lance on his way back too, after changing out of the sweater and the borrowed jeans and back into his own clothes. Hearing the gentle sound of the suitcases rolling on the pavemented ground, he tilted his head back to feel the breeze against his face, and concluded that this had been a nice day indeed, despite minor setbacks.

“Whose makeup case was it?” he asked, breaking the comfortable silence they had going on. He'd been curious about it the whole afternoon. “The one you used on me.”

“Nyma’s. She's… a friend.”

Something about Lance's hesitation to name their relationship felt off.

He sighed.

“Okay, I used to have the biggest crush on her, but she stepped all over my poor little heart with her lemon yellow stilettos, and then said we should just be friends. I accepted it, but she promised me she'd help me with your makeup and then bailed.”

Keith frowned, thinking about how irresponsible and inconsiderate of a person that Nyma girl was.

“Partying or summat. I hope she fails her classes because she missed a few to go to the city.”

Keith's eyes widened.

“You do?”

The suitcase he was carrying lost a bit of its balance and Keith had to stop to adjust the wheels again. When he managed to, he saw that Lance had stopped alongside him, and was looking at Keith with a sad smile.

“No, I don't.” He smirked. “But I hope I broke some expensive eyeshadow or some shit.  _ Accidentally.” _

Keith chuckled, and they carried on their walking. Soon, they were right in front of Lance's dorm building, then walking through the hallways, and finally, in front of Lance's door.

“I guess that's it,” Lance said, strangely giddy.

“I… guess so.”

“Well, thank you for this. The photoshoot and helping me bring the suitcases.” Lance opened the door and pulled one of the suitcases inside, into the room but only barely. He moved to grab the other one, and his hand brushed Keith's on the handle. “I had a lot of fun today. I'd like to repeat it sometime.”

“The… photoshoot?”

Keith's face must've been showing the same amount of confusion as he felt internally, for Lance snickered lazily.

Something felt odd about this. And not the sort of odd like he'd been feeling about Shiro's weird texting crusade, but like he was missing a puzzle of the big picture here, and Lance was able to see it all, and it amused him to no end.

“No, dummy. The date.” He picked up the second suitcase and pulled it inside too. “Bye, Keith. I'll text ya.”

Lance said goodbye with a light tap against Keith's cheek, turned around, and closed the door behind him without another word. Without waiting around for Keith to utter the questions that kept repeating themselves over and over inside his head.

_ Was it a date? Had it been a date? Did he do alright? What signs did he miss, what indicators of their photoshoot being a date hadn't clicked into place? _

_ Were they dating now that they had had a date? Did Keith have a boyfriend? What did that entail, exactly? _

_ Why hadn't Lance kissed him, in the fountain, or even just now? _

_ Should Keith text too? _

 

Keith went home, washed his face and buried himself beneath the covers. He wanted to talk to someone, anyone, but Dr. Zarkon had things of actual importance taking over his time and mind, and Keith didn't felt like he could trust Shiro right now. Clutching a pillow, he let his mind drift into a fitful sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it :) thank you all who commented, you're the sweetest  
> All I know about photography is from some videos I've seen and the one and only photoshoot I acted as an assistant, so just ignore me  
> Shot out to ma gurl Mai who's shown me the beauty of Keith in burgundy. I hope you liked it, and have a nice week <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :))


End file.
